I Work For A Private Museum | CreepCast

27:08I'd learned time and time again that nightmares were not in our walls. The horrors were within the people that visited, their sick pursuit of amusement and the games they would play, and I was their plaything. I'm sorry they played with you too, dear Mariette. The exhibition that made me quit was the sickening consequence of true human freedom, and it was only for me to see once a week. Mariette still walks the halls at night without her glass prison. Maybe I couldn't quit. I needed to repair it to make things right. She has such a slow, slow walk. glassy eyes starting left and right, rolling loose like marbles, her head pivoting left and right aimlessly looking for more plastic, needing more plastic to please the museum, to be the perfect exhibition.

27:54Kick, kick, kick. Before shutting the gate, I pensively peered around the grand foyer. The museum was large and harrowing. For a moment, I wore a grimace on my face, remembering a time when all I needed to satisfy our guests was to show them insects. I'd been here a long time. tails stripped from the walls like an endless flowing tap of horror there'd be more wealthy visitors i think i might have more stories to tell end of part one this episode sponsored by our partners at factor factor's here to make eating healthier and easier especially when your wife's with her boyfriend with over 175 ingredients every factor meal is designed around what supports a healthier lifestyle and nothing that doesn't Factor makes healthy eating easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs.

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32:17I mean, I know that the statues aren't coming to life, but you know, weird mystical museum thing, uh, is it, it's a fun concept. I think so. I think the idea of like, you have, um, these people who go to a place where they get to see these impossible things and they're the only people that get to do it. So it further ingrates them into like a high secret society level place. And you have it from a perspective of someone that has to watch. I think it's a fun idea. I think it's a fun premise. The living wall's cool. The giant bugs are cool. Stuff like that. It's all neat. And I wonder how Marriott ties into like the future entries and stuff.

32:56Maybe not necessarily the paranormal and the flesh wall and stuff, but do you think there is a secret underground high society museum of sorts of sadistic pleasure existing in the real world? uh you mean like a hypothetical island in the caribbean where they traffic children uh and rooms that were made to look like ancient roman bathhouses no i have no idea what you're talking about okay all right there's a bit of kind of a bit of a condescending tone to what you just said uh i i guess if if we're taking out that very real place more so uh like a giant like a structured, uh, actual museum, like displays or something.

33:40Um, maybe if I had to guess, it would be more so illegal material, right? Like, cause there's high society places that are public that you can visit. And there's like, there's rich people that have private exhibits, you know, of like their own personal collections of things they've bought and collected. Like a lot of the times you'll read about, um, you know, famous artworks or historical items, and it'll be like oh it was sold to a private collection right so there's things like that yeah well it made me think a little bit of uh martyrs when it's like a high high society like rich people getting together to see this like magnificent thing even though it's at the sake of like torturing somebody you know but you like get a see into the eyes of like a martyr or whatever is uh is kind of what i was wondering you know like obviously that there's like a paranormal element to that too or like a fantastical thing but I am curious if you know like when people say shit about like Bohemian Grove and like oh they're doing like their rituals and stuff like that out there I do wonder if there is something like that there's got to be right there's got to be something well Bohemian Grove's a real place for the only video we have is them doing a giant ritual yeah yeah but I guess what I'm saying is something that's like like in this vein a giant collection of like weird assorted stuff like it would be like I don't know Yeah, just something more fantastical.

34:59I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. Never mind, dude. You know what? Fuck it. There's Jeffrey Epstein's Island, and there's also Bohemian Grove. Never mind. I mean, after like Bohemian Grove and all the Epstein leaks and stuff, it's like, yeah, man, they probably got Cthulhu down there, and they like cut his tentacles off for fun at this point. Thank you. That's what I'm wondering. I put nothing out of the bounds of reality for these people. You know what I think? Centaur Pit. Like a pit full of like human horse hybrids? I think they're displaying weird mythological creatures of some kind or man-made is what I really think.

35:34They spliced it together. They spliced man and horse and there's probably something sexual with it. I mean, it's billionaires. They got to do something sexual with it. But I do think that there's something where it's like an oddities. It's like the big famous circus, you know, quote unquote freak show, except now it's real and it's people making crazy shit. You know, I don't know. I'm not going to say this. I would believe that. I would say that the freak show thing has continued and like these taxidermy projects and stuff like that. Absolutely. I feel like that they've kept them alive though.

36:05It's like they're fucking prisoners in there or something, you know? I could see that. I can definitely see that. A minotaur man or whatever. I think that's certainly possible. And once again, they're always hard and it's always sexual because they're billionaires. It has to be. Always. Every time. Of course, yeah. Can you imagine? Well, yeah, that's one of the reasons, because once you reach, and this is something, again, with all the Epstein stuff, once you reach a certain level of wealth and power, you can really get away with whatever you want in the realm that most people think of. Like, you can hook up with whoever you want.

36:39You can do whatever drugs you want. Like, all that stuff is poultry. where you really get your kicks is doing something that's like unspeakable, something beyond the realms of society, which is why I believe there is so much like pedophilia in the elitist groups and stuff like that. Yeah, it's the ultimate like also the invincible thing. I can't be touched. I'm impervious. That's why I legitimately believe there has been one billionaire who said Minotaur Labyrinth. And someone's like, what? And he's like, but you run around in a boner with a boner. I would believe it. I would believe that. I mean, there's photos of Epstein's Island where they had like a room set up to look like a dentist office with like clown faces on the wall and stuff.

37:22And at his ranch, he had these giant like pool rooms that had pictures of Jesus and crosses around them just as like a middle finger to religion. You know, like horrifying, horrifying. Yeah. Yeah. God only knows what's lurking underneath these stones to be unturned one day. Don't be surprised, is all I'm saying, when a goddamn centaur or minotaur person's running around like at a truck stop in Nevada somewhere or whatever, you know? I'd believe it. I would. And I'd be like, of course. Of course. Yeah. So this, you know, is like, oh, the comically evil, like over the top. Maybe it's not so over the top.

38:05Maybe. Yeah. I feel like we've, I feel like there's that type of guns. Like I'll just shove this woman into a flesh wall. Yeah. I mean, I think that, uh, it's, I'm sure the things are going to be cartoonish in like, you know, uh, in these, in these rooms or whatever, I have a feeling with this museum of like the Uber rich and powerful. I feel like me and you are going to be like, well, that can't be right. And it's always going to circle back to, yeah, probably, but that's probably going on right there. Yeah, probably. I feel like that's going to happen. They're probably doing that at this moment.

38:34Yeah. Right. Right now. Right now. like you say you think these dudes who are trafficking children to touch like no way they're not also killing people for fun right yeah yeah it's not like well come on i'm not a monster it's like what the fuck he talking about those motherfuckers ain't stopping anyway they're actual actual demons okay yeah yeah yeah they're monsters in human skin absolutely um part two Part two. Part two's subtitle is Don't Bring Your Kids Here. Great. Oh, wow. That's what a great start. What an unfortunate title after the things we've just been talking about. Here we go. Last week, we had an incident at the museum when venomous glass butterflies escaped their enclosures.

39:16This week, I found myself alone in the ocean exhibition room. The anglerfish circled endlessly in the abyss of its murky tank, searching for an exit it would never find. It met me at the glass interface of its pressurized prison, bumping its luminescent fishing lure against the glass grinned at me with thin white pencils. Hello, little guy. I will say too, I do believe too, like in these like ocean exhibits, exhibit stuff, I bet you billionaires or whatever, I bet you they have species of animal or fish or anything that we've never seen. I'd believe it. Yeah. Why not? I mean, if they found like one, it's like put it in the collection, you know, So there's definitely some dude out there, some Jeffrey Epstein type who has a giant tank with like an oarfish inside of it.

40:04I am just, I feel like there's even, even because they, you know, I mean, the sea levels are right. You know, all this stuff of, I think that they're trying to go into the ocean. I think that there's people who are probably, we're getting conspiratorial now. This is what's going to bring, this is what's going to bring us out of this, Isaiah. This is going to be a very conspiratorial episode of this podcast that we have here. and I have a feeling that people are trying to splice their genes with fish to where they can become mermen mermaids thoughts see if it was if it was that surface level I wouldn't care as much you know if it comes out that the reason Epstein was doing all that is because he wanted to be like a goat man okay that's such if they want to be mermen that is such a more comforting answer then no no let me tell you this everything once again is it's going to be sexual and horrifying there's murder in it somehow i'm just saying it's sure it's going that that's the that's the quote-unquote end goal or the excuse i guess i should say yeah yeah no i could see that the definitely some like human centipede stuff going on but like these human animal hybrids for the say i think it's more like tusk to me it's not like they want to do it to themselves they want to do it to someone else and here's a question for you isaiah and i'm curious what you think can mermaids breastfeed all right there you go you were doing so good 43 minutes even then i was giving you the whole like the cinetar hard thing i was giving you that because it's like well it's kind of in the realm of like sexual depravity but now you're just going on your own routes i'm sorry

41:51I thought I had I'm just going to keep reading I found myself staying a while in our deep sea exhibition watching the creature as he bathed and flicked around in his own little cube of the world he could never know why he was in the museum or who put him there instead he swam he swam and swam and hoped that just one day the glass would crack just an inch Luckily, feeding the shaggy frogfish didn't take long. The yellowfish knocked away clouds of dust along the bottom of its tank as it scurried along on its leg-like fins with the awkward gait of a geriatric golden retriever. It was hard to keep happy in this ghoulish museum, but that room always made me smile.

42:33Upstairs, I went before working through some paperwork for a few hours. I'm not sure at what point I mistakenly fell into a catnap at my desk, but I soon paid the price in nightmares. Am I pretty daddy? Deep, muffled voice. Blowflies sprawled across her face that was framed with golden hair. Blacked wing spots covered her eyes and mouth. Am I pretty? She didn't sound like Sophia. The face of my dead daughter. Good lord. I'm jumping right into it. Nothing more. It must have been hard for her to speak. Flies coated her throat like popping candy, bursting and buzzing as she spoke. Daddy, did you doze off again?

43:14she giggled in a voice that was not her own flies crawled around her face aimlessly worrying buzzing buzzing until i swat one crawling up my arm i woke up groaning with a jolt my wrist pink where i slapped myself awake the monstrous foyer of the museum still clapping with an echo my paperwork sprawled everywhere across my table stressing me again just as easily as it had put me to sleep lists of last week's casualties notes on tonight's guest complaints all forms of boring. Paper unstuck itself from my arm and fluttered to the ground floor from my reception desk one floor up. The ocean exhibit and the unconscious escapism that NAPS brought me was my only liberation from the museum.

43:56Though, that was the time before sleep brought nightmares. When I went to check my watch, I noticed I hadn't smacked a fly after all. A glass butterfly had become mere bits of translucent wing that coated my fingers like glitter. I rubbed my hands and the clear fragments bloated gracefully down the marble stairs in a breeze like tiny mosquitoes or dust specks sparkling in the beams of moonlight trickled in through the glass ceiling. For a moment, I wish it had stung me and taken me to a better place. At least then, I couldn't dream of blowflies coming out of my dead daughter's mouth. Ron and Jill and the rest of the maintenance staff packed up and left.

44:33The bustling noise was gone. There's no more work to be done except wait for more wealthy, deplorable people to arrive. I was alone again, the only staff member in the museum, and I let my mind freely slip into a different time, a time before I was the tour guide. It was time to open shop. I combed my hair, pulled my shirt collar free from my waistcoat, shined my shoes. Down the marble staircase I went, tapping down the steps through the butterfly dust like headlights and fog. The clock struck six o 'clock. The museum was now open for the evening, and only for the rich folk waiting outside. I pulled the large door open.

45:10It groaned and echoed in the museum's enormous foyer. Seven aristocrats haughtily strode inside. Three men and four women clad in fancy dresses and coats. One man took a while to come up to the front steps and enter the museum, carrying his wooden cane. The tour will start immediately. There's a coat rack to your - A girl, maybe eight or nine, came quietly through the door in a teeny black suit. Her unsure gaze scanned the foyer top to bottom, her eyes large, glossy globes. She shouldn't be here. I didn't see her on the register. I thought, she won't survive here. Kneeling, I spoke. Hello, miss.

45:49The girl shyly leaned from behind the frame of the front door, her skin turning as pale as the ivory marble flooring. This must have been the first child to set foot in this godforsaken place, and for good reason. Which of these people are your appearance. I tried hard to keep a warm smile. Nothing. She simply glared at me with two shiny eyes under a blonde curtain of hair. She doesn't speak, sonny. Man with the wooden cane cleared his throat. Didn't speak the whole ride here. Won't speak now. Doesn't respond to anything at all? Really? One beak-nosed, snobby woman put her coat on the rack. Probably deaf.

46:22I stood thinking for a while, my face contemplating, changing in the light. Looking around at the billionaires in the foyer, they already looked ready to sink their teeth into the exhibitions, or worse. Bringing her along with the rest of the group on the museum tour was simply not an option. Fortunately for her, it was a requirement for me to understand the basics of at least 20 languages to allow for appropriate interaction with the museum's guest. This included sign language, but my understanding tended to be rather broken. I could usually only make out the main words. Kneeling again, I spoke to her with my hands.

46:56The girl gestured back to me that mommy and daddy had sent her on a visit to the museum as they were called away for a business trip in Dubois. How was the flight? I gestured. Good. Big nose wound was very annoying. She giggled and gestured that I didn't need to do hand signs. She could read my lips. I liked her already. My smile didn't need much effort anymore. Came naturally. Though I was still stuck with a child in an unforgiving place. She was a rabbit running in an open field under the shadow of the museum's eagle-clawed exhibitions. Worse, the unsated bloodlust and curiosity of the wealthy and free.

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52:53That's when I remembered to clause in my employee agreement. Conduct one tour every open evening. Gesturing widely and confidently, I stood up and winged away for the girl's safety. My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this evening's tours have been canceled. Groans from the crowd. The tour clause in my contract never stated how many people I needed to bring with me. We just got here! Do not fret. The museum is all yours to explore. Exited one arm to point them towards the deep sea exhibition. Please don't wait the anglerfish. Tapping and screeching sounded against the floor as the crowd disappeared down the halls.

53:30Starlight beamed through the windows, lighting up the girl's face. She beamed straight back with excitement. it. Now the tour can begin in peace. Peace was a lie, however. Unsupervised, the crowd would soon find some way or another to demonstrate that they were worse behaved than the kids standing before me. Demonstration that would likely involve death. What do you like to do? Drawing. I know just the thing. Many minutes passed that evening as me and the girl began exploring the museum. Her name was Rosie, and she was very nervous about all the scary exhibitions. At the intersection between the art and music showcase between another hallway leading to a locked door, we halted.

54:07What's down there? She pointed a tiny finger down the dark hall. That room, that room with the metal door. What's in there, guide? I know the museum from back to front, but I have to say, I've never been in there. Tightly sealed shut. No key. Oh, okay. She gave a sulking nod. Yeah, I know the feeling. I swiftly smiled to cheer up as I ushered her into the art and music space. It's like nothing she'd ever seen before. Her bright eyes could have lit up a candle. The towering walls and ceiling of the art exhibit were flowing waves of sand that changed and hissed as they rolled. One moment, the walls painted a shifting mural of starry night.

54:44Waves of blue and yellow sand curling and shifting from one famous artwork to another. The wall to our left painted the scream. She spread her fingers into the sand waterfall. It flowed between her digits like she had pinched salt. It's so beautiful. She gestured, her mouth a cape at the ceiling. tapped her on the shoulder so she could read my lips. We don't just house paintings here. Take a look at these. Leaning one hand against a small glass cabinet, we gazed in. Two brightly colored shoes were set upon an ivory silk sheet, iridescent against the changing colorful backdrop of the sandy walls.

55:19They gleamed bright enough to show their true crystalline translucency. Beneath the glass cabinet, the clumsy dancers. She wasn't truly impressed until I heartily slapped the cabinet. The knocking suddenly turned the empty shoes alive, tapping and dancing upon the silk beneath them. One dance changed to another. Another became a twirl. They gracefully ended their tango with the famous moonwalk shuffle. Wow, what are these? She pressed her hands against the glass. If she were any closer, they might have kicked her. Well, some people might have a good voice. Fantastic, fantastic singing voice. I took out my sackcloth and began polishing the glass as I spoke.

55:57Some people have the rhythm for soulful moves. These shoes right here, they bridge the gap. She was glaring at me with wide eyes, listening with them too, pulling the weight of ears that couldn't hear. They were developed sometime between the 60s and 70s. Helped push the dancing and nep singers into superstardom, but I gave them a dancing edge too. I gestured her onto the next display against one sand waterfall. For a moment, I caught a sparkle in her eye. Her hair and bright grin reminded me of my dearly departed daughter, filling me with a long forgotten warmth. Bet I'm having more fun than you are right now, Rosie.

56:32She took a seat. What's this, guide? Upon the table before, a small white pen lay over a graphite and ash-speckled stone tablet. When I pointed to the thin edges of the black plate, she caught the stretched golden placard that said, Ballpoint Stone. Her head twisted around to me, eagerly waiting. Go ahead, you'll see. I nodded and she turned back around. Her hand grabbed the pen, met the plate with a blocky tap. Abruptly, the wall of sand bloomed a pale white, save for tiny imperfections of dotted peach-colored sand that gave it the impression of an art canvas, other than plain paper. As her hands swirled upon the plate, blotches of black sand circles formed and swirled against the wall's coarse current.

57:15Or draw something, Rosie. The plate knows what you will draw and will guide you. Sure at first, she shook the back of her golden head a few times. An eight-year-old perfectionist. In that moment, I smirked when I pictured her rolling up her suit sleeves to get the work done right. I laughed when she really did it. Is that me? I let out, staring at the sand wall. A man with brown hair emerged on the moving canvas, dressed in an absolutely dashing maroon waistcoat. Must be me. The drawing was a bit beyond an eight-year-old's range of skill. We had the pen and plate to thank for that, though she was doing a beautiful job showing off.

57:51Wow, looks great, Rosie. she had all my attention when she began drawing another figure who's that beside me now okay here we go uh-oh here it is i was gonna say i'm like listen i like this whole fucking harry potter fun time thing but let's you know let's let's get into it and here we go i thought it was gonna get broken up with like they busted open like the spiders the time spiders or something and like yeah i don't know what it is but the trope of like little girl drawing horrible thing is always so frightening to me i'm always just like it's anytime it's like the same thing as like when a child draw something or like when your dog is sitting looking at a corner and you're just like what are you looking at that i can't see it's fucking horrifying yeah there's been multiple nights i'm going to bed and the dog's just locked in down the hall oh my god i hate it i get up and i'm like pushing the dog like stop quit what just quit in the sand of the towering wall before me A gawky shape appeared that bloomed big black blobs.

58:49It looked familiar, yet terrifying. Diabolical sharp nails protruded from its lanky black arms. Rosie? Nothing. She kept scribbling away tirelessly at the plate. Okay, this is where I would slap the pin or I'd get a spray bottle and I'd start spraying water. Yeah, you keep a spray water bottle for the guest. Oh, yeah, bad. Bad Rosie, bad. The thing loomed over my figure on the drawing on the wall. sand flowing, the creature looming, looming, looming. It was a sickening animation. One ghoulish jaw hung free over its disgusting long neck. It engulfed my head. Thin pencil-like teeth cut through my childishly drawn throat, red sand suddenly coughing and spitting out of the wall and onto the museum floor, staining rosy shirt like bloody rain.

59:40I grabbed her by the arm. What the hell are you drawing? I like yelling at a deaf child.

59:51It's for me, not her. She glared up at me with glossy eyes like she was about to cry. It wasn't me. I lifted her from the seat and plopped her upon the floor that was littered with speckles of red sand. I turned to the wall and pointed at her depiction of me. See? That's you. My heart was racing. Did the museum make her draw this? And? Her shaky arm slowly drifted to the black figure. that's mr sleepy good god okay hey you want to go see the living wall you should touch it feels warm yeah rosie it was a lot of fun hanging out but you got to get the hell out of here you gotta go touch the death wall oh yeah it was so fun hanging out here go touch that wall why no just just go give a big hug also to the uh whenever you're first reading this i i picture that the the person the tour guide I thought that they were like late teens early 20s maybe but this seems like it might be like an older maybe not older but like 30s maybe oh yeah he's been here a while yeah he's been here a long time yeah yeah yeah for sure I imagine late 30s early 40s kind of thing .

1:00:58But not like not like a broad like age kind of guy like a Steve Buscemi and Fargo kind of thing like a sort of squirrely picked on kind of guy, you know? Oh, you're picturing him like that? No, not in appearance wise. I just mean kind of in like the smaller frame. Oh, I see. The museum people are more like degrading to him kind of thing. Sure, right. I felt sick. I had tried so hard to pull her away from the mayhem, but the museum had bitten back. Come with me. I said sternly and she took my hand. Off we went quickly, downstairs to the indoor forest exhibition. I had to keep her safe. No more misadventures.

1:01:35As we left, Mr. Sleepy turned his head and stared at me with his vacant, horrifying, sandy eye sockets. I didn't tell her that. I do like the animated sand thing. Like, that's pretty sweet. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, I remember, have you ever been to one of those places where they have like the, it's for kids, the geography thing where they can move sand and it shows them how the topography changes and like where water would go and stuff like that. I think we had something like that. it was in Kansas City. It was called like Science City or something. But it was like, yeah, like basically like a big area for it was like little in sections or whatever, but it was like a scientific or like a little play area that like taught you stuff, whatever.

1:02:14Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine like that, but it's like vertical on a wall. Yeah. Pretty sweet. Also to just the idea that you draw something and it like basically becomes real up there. Yeah. Like animating itself to life is pretty fun. We saw a few distant visitors along the way to the forest room. They roared with laughter, screamed, I ushered her along with me, holding her hand tight. For a while, things were much calmer in the forest room. I explained to the girl that it was partly an aviary and reassured her the birds still got sunlight through the glass ceiling when it was daytime, though this evening only moonlight beamed through into the museum's indoor forest.

1:02:49Rosie and I startled a few birds, crunching the bark upon the ground as we delved deeper. Quiet, Rosie. Gestured this time. Yes, we have to be quiet. I pointed to a display next to us that was wedged between two well-trimmed trees. It was dark, but we managed to make out the shape of a person inside. That tree looks like a man. That's because it is. Her eyes lit up as I whispered, still clenching my hand tightly. An experiment gone wrong. We house it here so we can sleep. He's not human. Not anymore. Feast through his roots or anyone stupid enough to get close to him. I like how this kid like gets possessed and draws one creepy thing.

1:03:25And he's like, all right, well, you want to come see the tree person? Don't let him eat you. I like. so and just to make sure fucking mr uh zequel whatever he's coming over and he's like sequel the sand is chasing them right or is it saying that like a paranormal entity is chasing them but it's not necessarily the sand it's just like whatever entity was drawn that's like kind of like coming after them now or at least i don't think anything's chasing them okay so then yeah well i don't know it was just a thing of like well let's go and it seems like they're cutting through like a dangerous area for whatever reason no no no so it's it's what i'm reading it as is that drawing freaked him out so he leaves right okay so he takes her over to a different exhibit but they have to be quiet because of the things in the exhibit i see i think nothing could be heard in the dark indoor forest only that of the crunching of leaves as she moved to press her nose against the glass the screech rosie don't make too much noise what's his name no name gently pulled her away from the exhibit.

1:04:29Fucking grabbed underneath her armpits and fucking threw over it. Honked her straight over it. Damn it. Though some guests call it the slumber ghoul, he's relatively harmless. Though one of our poor Jander's fellows sleeping here during one of these long evenings, never woke up. Oh god, the slumber ghoul. The slumber ghoul. That's great. That's awesome. He's called the if you come near me, I'm gonna fucking kill you guy. Yeah, he's not that dangerous. We just call him the Holocaust death machine 5000. Yeah. Which, you know, he's relatively harmless, but if you go near him, he skins you alive and puts you into a fucking juicer.

1:05:09Okay. Okay, cool. Thank you. That guy, that's just the sodomizer 8000. The what? Excuse me? When you're a little older, I'll tell you what that means. Her hand tightened around mine. They say you eat you through your dreams and if you're really tired, you don't even have to be asleep to feel it happening. Good fucking lord. Why don't you keep some of this information away from the kid? Let's go look at the fish. Let's go to the gift shop. Yeah, they have a gift shop where it's just like little cartoon depictions of all the stuff that wants to kill you. Yeah. Wasn't that fun? You remember I was dying in here?

1:05:48Now you can get a keychain. Here's a little bear with a t-shirt. That'll be$500. Yeah, it's$500. Well, you're rich, dude. Come on. Pay it. Yeah, who cares? That was all I had to say. She pulled my arm in a hurry towards the door. Sorry for scaring you, Rosie. Well, I mean, duh. Shit. Sorry, kid. What are we, Puritan now? What's the problem? We had almost made it to the back door when a couple of blue butterflies fluttered and landed on her hair. She had almost lifted one onto my finger with leaves crunched behind us. One of the deplorable rich people had found us. He was scrambling around in the dark, reaching out with hands unable to see.

1:06:22his hand met the cabinet that housed the tree man the idiot sounded a loud honk as his fingers slid across the glass without warning he smashed the glass cackling as he ran out of the forest aviary and back to the halls okay so i get like these guys being like killers and wanting stuff to die but they keep describing them like giant toddlers what's this like yeah smashes glass and runs away. I mean, don't be wrong. I do like these, this very like Looney Tunes-esque way that like these billionaires are like walking around with like, I imagine like pinstripe, you know, like the classic burglar look.

1:07:00I keep picturing that. There's all these like burglar billionaires walking around with like giant sacks that have dollar bills on it. And then they like run off and they make like weird vaudeville cartoon sounds. Because there was that There's like the case earlier and then they're looking at the venomous butterflies and they're like, don't shut the door. Let them free. And also like the level of like supposedly important and rich people casualties this museum has would be staggering. You know? Yeah. I mean, it'd be fucking, it'd be a lot. Rosie tried to free from my hand's grip, breaking into a sprint to no avail.

1:07:41It's okay, Rosie, the back door. Let's go. We jogged quickly through the trees, crunching bark and waking birds as we went, running, running. The door to the aviary sounded a clack. Somebody was locking us in. I jimmied the rest of the doorknob at the back to no avail. The door first clicked, then bumped with no groan as it stubbed to a sudden shut. It widened little enough that I swore I won't be able to even fit a few fingers in the gap. Mr. Sleepy. Mr. Sleepy is coming. Something's in the way. I grunted. Suddenly, the girl drummed a few fist hammers on my leg. She kept hammering on the side of my leg.

1:08:18Rosie pouted a worried face to the artificial tree line before rummaging her face into one of my black pant legs away from something horrible. Yonder the trees, it towered with flesh irregular and charred black like an ashen log. Its mouth hung unhinged, wide open and ghoulish. Its eyes a vacant white. It was watching us. Rosie. I held the girl by her shoulders. Rosie, it's okay. He can't get us. The girl looked up with glossy eyes. Monster. She gestured. It cannot touch us if we're well slept. Stay awake, okay? Gave her a warm look, but it was quickly cracking. Mr. Sleepy. We shared a gaze for as long as she could muster before her eyes met the ground.

1:08:58Rosie, why don't you stay calm when you answer my question, okay? I had to balance my gaze between her and the thing in the trees. Rosie sniffled and nodded. Did you sleep much on the flight to the museum? My eyes started to movement behind us. Blackened stumps where legs should be slogged under the cool, moving weighted like an unrooted oak. Every slow step it took made its torso contort with a sickening crack as if its bones had snapped and twisted. Its mouth had since whited enough that it could fit Rosie's beautiful, ripened head inside. Rosie, did you sleep? Crack. Rosie! Crack. Crack. Like a fever dream, I saw blowflies crawling over her eyelids and her mouth, just like my dead daughter, Sophia.

1:09:39am I pretty daddy? I snapped out of it. Rosie please! I boomed shaking her crack crack crack crack crack I had to get her out I couldn't lose her not again. I shot up from my knees launching her onto my shoulders and bolted towards the other door. Her head bounced around while I ran but when I steadied we made out the ghoul. It was looming close a mere 20 paces away its torso flailed with the disjointed crack and directions perpendicular to its body. Hold on! I announced as I held Rosie to my chest. I extended a leg and launched a kick into the door. Curses under my breath could not drown out the sickening sound behind me.

1:10:17All I could think of was that I had to get Rose out, and that its step sounded like boot, meaning snail. Get in! I said, and her shoes popped on the ground. This time, I held my kick as one shoe planted against the door. I could not open it wide enough for myself, but pressing the door with my boot made it groan wide for her to enter. For a split second, I worried about the rich people through the door and in the halls too. One long, unending nightmare. I finally broke through. The rich people who had been blocking the door shut went sprawling like cockroaches under a bright light. I cackled maniacally as they ran through the halls.

1:10:51Almost got you! One of the rich men laughed as he went around a bend, his voice becoming distant as he ran. Again, just the idea. We're going to kill the child. I do. I do like that. At least they're keeping them consistent that way that they're just as immature as the child that he's watching after. Or not even like Rosie is more mature than these people are. But I do like this idea of like, it's a playground, like it's a museum, but this is just like a sadistic fucking playground. I mean, it's like, they're just doing whatever they want with all the toys on display. Again, it's, it's campy obviously, but it's like a fun camp, you know?

1:11:26No, I think so. It's very, it's very like hunger games audience esque, you know? Well, I, even the outside the camp to me i'm like this is just the actual horrifying part of being like being a tour guide for a secret fucked up museum for billionaires i would expect them to it would be a uh what is this sodom and gomorrah kind of like fucking crazy party whatever kind of vibe yeah yeah i could see that especially you know no cameras no rules no witnesses kind of thing yeah exactly they couldn't keep getting away with this they couldn't keep tormenting me in the museum for sickening entertainment.

1:12:02Wait here, told Rosie. She was a ball on the ground, shaking and sobbing. I shot up on two legs in a rush and gave chase. He can be assumed he locked the door back, right? I would have to. Well, actually, I don't know. They didn't specify it, so maybe not. I almost assumed that he just ran as soon as the door burst open, they just started running. And also, it seems like before in the last post, I don't know, it doesn't seem like locking or closing doors is a part of his itinerary. It's not a standard operation around these parts. The rich prick ran and ran, his hands screeching against the walls of the tight corridor.

1:12:37Our museum's greenhouse is on either side. You almost killed Rosie. Sprinting, I'd almost caught up with him. He was in arm's reach. Stop running. His leg caught itself beneath one foolish stride. He went tumbling into one wall before pushing off of it and into another, smashing the glass and halfway tumbling into the greenhouse. Spectacles had come away from his face. Blood drained and trickled towards his scalp as he hung over shards of the broken window. Starlight flooded in from the greenhouse and blanketed his face in a greenish hue. Help me, coarsely pleaded. One arm reached up at me, wanting to be pulled away from the glass into safety.

1:13:14Inside, Holly, our greenhouse Venus flytrap with the mouth to fit a man, twisted and loomed in the evening light. She was a ginormous, beautiful plant. Hungry, too. The man's head tilted backward and set eyes on the plant. He wriggled and wormed, trying to free from the glass that struck through him. I reached one hand outward to lift him, then stopped myself. Rosy smile glowed in my mind like hot steel. My daughter, Sophia, had that smile. A smile he wanted to take away. My arm retracted. Lift me out of here! Hurry! I glared at him, unblinkingly. Then it was over. With one swift swoop, Holly swallowed his torso.

1:13:56Green, hairy fingers from her lips snugly tightened around his body like mossy bandages. My employment contract has been broken, and I shall be punished. Globules of thick slime dripped from the flytrap's lips. Arms and legs burst out of her mouth as she chomped. When I returned to Rosie, I held her hand tighter than I had the entire evening. I held and held her hand all night until it was time for her ride to pick her up from the museum's courtyard. broken glass and escaped exhibitions tend to be the majority of the damage and for a few hours I swept when everyone had left all that was left for me to do was sit at my reception table and wait for sunrise my contract had been broken I let a guest die at my hand there were always all despicable I suppose that one had to die Rosie's warmth that had gripped me so tightly dissipated hours after the museum turned quiet.

1:14:47Everything was cold again. I miss my daughter. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you like Rosie. There'd be more rich guests to torment me next week. And there was no escape. I thought about the ocean exhibition I visited earlier in the evening. The anglerfish and I are one and the same. I love you, Sophia. I slumped at my table. I lay broken and bruised. Rested my head upon folded arms, ready to let sleep come to me. I hope I don't dream of you my girl I want to see the blowflies again for a while nothing then something quite curious for the first time in 15 years the museum's phone rang end of part 2 it's always interesting with these stories because this seems like a story and correct me if I'm wrong this seems like a story where it was like well I'm just gonna like kind of like write a bunch of first part stuff and if something takes hold then I'll just add on to it right yeah it always i always think that these things do way better when you get to know like i always like every time that these like little like vignette stories it always gets a lot more fun the farther it goes along because they're like you get a little know a little bit more about the character each time and i think the way that this story is kind of like it's like to me it feels like a fucked up harry potter book doesn't it like kind of like in harry potter there's like the fucked up tree that like it'll swipe at you there's like these little things that are almost like childlike, but then all of a sudden it'll kind of like hit you with something heavier, but I do I'm wondering if it's going to keep that kind of that tonality the entire time, and I keep wondering myself too, how did he get this job, and is there something that he did, like is this job almost like a prison sentence or something, you know like is he actually being paid for this, or is this something worth?

1:16:39One of those things now that he's here he can't leave you know well you assume so i mean anytime you have like a thing like this you're you're uh disposable you know yeah they're not just gonna let him quit because that one line i really liked a lot was you broke your contract you're gonna be punished it'd be kind of cool to see more of the organizers which i'm maybe i'm sure we'll get into as we're going on because we're getting ready to be on part three of five but i it'd be cool to see like who's running the museum and what does that punishment look like i hope we get to explore that a bit because that'd be a lot of fun i think this setup of having kind of these comically rich people in these like fantastical settings is a cool cool idea and i like the recurring stuff of like mariette and the the sleep demon or whatever i think that's fun i think so too i think i hope that they keep that consistent though like my my fear is that i think that it's a fun thing to i would like to see that develop more like how crazy and childlike that these billionaires are these rich people and like how they act in this museum i hope that's expanded upon and like all of a sudden it doesn't just shift where it's like now we're very serious and whatever like i hope it stays that in that yeah it's okay if they introduce like a serious group who like runs the museum that's fine i agree i do like the billionaires being like childish it also makes it also makes them more susceptible to just all the like traps that are like lying around like they're not taking any of it with any kind of like sincerity so they'll just keep fucking dying i think is fun but i do think like the second part it was really fun having even though it was kind of random of just like by the way my kid's dead you're like what you know like that kind of came out of nowhere but i hope that i'd like to know more about this guy like it'd be cool to know more more about him and like why he's in this situation and more important why he can't leave yeah i like the idea of him kind of being like victim of uh or not him being victim i like the idea of these guys kind of falling into these ludicrous traps like the last guy dying to a giant venus fly trap like a little shop of horrors that's really fun i think so do also i wonder what the consequences are for that where it's like oh the owner of FedEx died well oops see I wonder for legal reasons you couldn't do that but that would be really really fun yeah Dave FedEx is at the museum that day Mr.

1:19:10FedEx he keeps boxing shit he keeps boxing shit and trying to like put like send it off you can't take the museum pieces Mr. FedEx why not in the first part the guy i like the idea that the president of fedex is obsessed with packaging things like no dave put it down no dave put it down and then he looks at the guy and he's like he actually invented overnight shipping did you know that's okay fedex by the way you're like who gives mr fedex he invented the idea of putting things in boxes and putting them somewhere else yeah wow also in part one i completely imagined that the richie guy who killed that woman i imagine that is mark sucker dude i was gonna say the same thing i was thinking the exact same thing that is so funny literally though yeah like casualty it's just like here so this is pretty much funny and then i pictured when he pushed her in to the flesh wall since like a big meme right now is mark is like on an all like brazilian jiu-jitsu i imagined him like dance kicking her like eddie from teken into the wall he did like that look he gave was like that dead lizard eye stare he did during his like testimony in front of congress she's a bug she's a bug she's not real to me she's not i feed bug i feel i feed bug to the wall that's cool yeah that's pretty cool insect into the wall.

1:20:37I feel nothing. I don't feel anything. I'm going to go buy something. Awesome. Thanks. I have a feeling that guy's going to come back though. 100%. And like I said, my bear trap is that it's the museum's son. The museum's owner's son is what I think. I could believe that. Yeah. I could take that. It just feels like all the other billionaires have been childish, but he feels very it feels like very snotty like my dad owns a dealership kind of vibe yeah yeah yeah definitely like third generation wealth kind of thing whatever my dad will just buy it who cares the way the way you said my dad owns a dealership like in your mind the pinnacle of wealth is your father owns a car dealership i ever since i've watched that awkward it's from an awkward teen hunger force episode he's like his dad owns a dealership my dad owns this dealership i know But now every time I think of a kid who thinks he's wealthy, it's always like a guy who owns his dad.

1:21:35My dad owns a dealership. Exactly. It's perfect. Part three. Part three. Part three. The guests are trying to kill me. Oh, good. This week, I found myself scrubbing away at the scatterbrain mirror in the paranormal wing of the museum. The premise was simple. The mirror's deep navy and galaxy sparkled reflection would read your eyes and the deepest horrors and fears from the recesses of your mind would scatter onto the mirror like brain paint if i'm being completely honest i'd really dread it cleaning the mirror i hated seeing my daughter's distorted face staring back at me or the reanimated horrors of the museum eating away at my flesh yes i'm talking about you marriott peered my head out of the large doorway to the plastic doll in her display it'd be fun with these i know that like people don't really include a lot of like photos and stuff on these r slash no sleep stuff it'd be fun if you're like a museum person just to give a visual of like just like a hand-drawn map or something even on a napkin that you scan and just upload i feel like that would make it a lot more immersive too like that'd be kind of fun yeah just like a picture of the map or maybe for this one you could have a picture of the mirror you know in a room or something yeah just like little things of like as if he's on his break like in the break room and it's just like a little a doodle things like that i think could make it feel more personal too like That'd be kind of fun.

1:22:55Yeah, I think they flesh out a world. Yeah. I think they flesh out a story a lot, yeah. My microfiber cloth polished the blood and muck from the corners of the mirror's golden ornamental frame. It reached between the crevices of the perched gargoyles it depicted in its etchings around the rim of its face. Around the center, I swirled and swirled until it was squeaky tidy. When I saw my daughter Sophia, I met her imaginary hand at the interface of the reflection with mine. When I saw a monstrous exhibition standing behind my shoulders, I rolled two unimpressed eyes. Cleaning carried my mind to the clouds, and I thought about the museum rather than the labor ahead of me.

1:23:32I guess there is great fear and unknowing, and like a disease, the fear I once had for the museum's daunting artifacts soon spread to another host once I became accustomed to its horrifying mechanisms while living in its belly for so long. The unpredictable fear and excitement of the building bit the wealthy visitors like a rabid dog. My panic no longer grew from the museum's walls, but blossomed from the cruel, diseased hearts of the deplorable rich people that visited. I could always predict the way the museum would react, ever the manner human malice could. And every week, I had no choice but to confront those who visited the museum and mold myself to their erratic and sickening behavior.

1:24:13It was the same fear that gripped me 15 years ago before I signed the employment contract, the fear I had in my 20s, the fear that came from finding out my daughter's cancer was untreatable without chemotherapy. We were young. My job didn't pay enough for costly therapy. Hopelessness met me at the end of an empty whiskey bottle, which had stared at me accusingly until the very last drop. I was a failed father with nothing but time on his hands to watch my daughter Sophia wither away and observe her joyful, smiling soul fall through my fingers like sand. that was till the day i saw a strange article in the newspaper tour guide wanted it read when i saw the salary listed i saw not dollar signs but my daughter's bright smile my mind's eye witnessed her future graduation her wedding second chance from the cruel illness that had been pulling her away from my arms and into a child-sized coffin oh man what a brutal sentence i know my good word like i said i always feel like every time they every time you get deeper into these these little vignette stories they always go so much harder i i don't know why it just always feels like they're i mean you just build stuff with the characters and like it makes it more meaningful like if that sentence was dropped like beginning of the first story it'd be we'd be kind of like okay that's harsh off the top whatever but we've spent enough time with this guy that it like it's impactful yeah yeah no it's yeah imagine if the first like the first paragraph had my child dragged from her future wedding to a child's eyes coffin be like oh all right dude i feel like knowing you you would be like oh i am in because i mean i would be you'd be like holy shit that'd be fucking crazy yeah okay okay if the story continued in that tone yes but if i read that and then the next sentence was it goes to this anyway we passed the living the sleepy poo poo man and it's like okay i'm getting a little conflicting vibes here which are we going it's like jk rowling doing like uh like pieces together with a different author all right you take this section i'll take this section yeah the girl who named an asian character ching chong that's not that's a ching chong dude i swear it's ching chong it's cho chang dude come on that's the same that is the same the instantly recognizable cho chang from jk rowling's extremely diverse that is the same thing yeah well every character follows the same naming pattern where it's like stereotype mick like descriptor quality or whatever uh and so it's like yeah if we had a sentence like that followed by anyway the glass butterflies were venomous.

1:26:57It would be like off-putting. But the way the stuff's a bit, because again, people all the time be like, oh, you don't like quirky, you don't like whimsy. I don't like whimsy details when it undercuts a story. I just want to be consistent. But because the story established, exactly, because the story established its tone off the back, then it stays in that tone throughout. And I'm fine reading a fun story and it can be campy as long as it knows it's doing that. And if I had to give it a bit, sure. There's times where I might be a little more vocal about not liking some of the quirky chungus humor.

1:27:28Fine. Sue me. It's a personal thing. It's really when the quirky chungus humor just takes a serious story and knocks it down so far. Honestly, the story doesn't have it yet. It's ramping up. I think it's ramping up. I feel like it's like the characters are, but they don't say jokes to undercut the tension and stuff like that. It's just they act foolish in the world is very fantastical so then they come across these fantastical elements and they react to them like people would like please help me save me rather than like the guy falls in and he goes well that just happened true yeah what is this like a little shop of horrors like a marvel quip or something exactly as long as we keep staying away too from like you know mr cookie feet or something like that then i think i'll be happy i think we'll be okay yeah yeah well i mean when a child describes something as mr sleepy or whatever it's like yeah that's how a child would describe like a sleep demon yeah but wasn't isn't that what he called that's what he called that he called it that though didn't he he said some guests called the slumber monster okay i see but she calls it mr sleepy because it's the way a child would describe you know that i feel that yeah but like because it established that tone and now we have a internal character moment the child-sized coffin line feels fitting because it is in that personal turmoil rather than changing the tone of the whole story around it.

1:28:51Right. Versus where a lesser story would really lay on the child coffin thing in the beginning and then have a guest be like, what's her deal? She's made of plastic. That's weird. What's her deal? Stuff like that. What the hell? Awkward. Yeah. Awkward. Awkward. Yeah, they think they come up to the case with Mariette inside and the Mark Zuckerberg guy's like, so I guess she tried to cancel him. Actually, to be fair, if you did make all the billionaires like the like that kind of humor, it'd be kind of funny. Watching Mark Zuckerberg Brazilian jujitsu kick a woman into a full flesh wall. And then like Mark Cuban comes around the corners like awkward sauce.

1:29:34If if it stayed consistently and that that'd be fine. Yeah, yeah, that'd be OK. Yeah, yeah. But so far, there hasn't been jokes to undercut the threat of stuff around them, which I appreciate. There's still time. There's still time. There's still time, though. The employment contract to be the tour guide at the private museum was simple yet unforgiving. The paycheck was huge, enough to solve my personal woes and help my family. Though the paperwork was littered with strange clauses, most of which ended with, an event of breaching this agreement, employee is subject to immediate termination and a sanguination.

1:30:07What the fuck? Excuse me? You want to run that last part by me again? If you don't know what a sanguination means, it's a showy word to describe draining your circulation of blood. Thank you, story. I was 20-something, desperate, and I'd guess the word meant that they were going to forcibly take me from my property. Later, when I found out what it meant, I consoled myself. It was merely a sick joke. No organization simply murdered unruly employees. My wife, however, didn't find it amusing. Though desperation took me, propelled me to sign up for Sophia's sake. and the museum held me in its jaws for 15 years.

1:30:45The contract was indefinite, and early termination would result in one thing, a sanguination. This was no known organization. No one would hear me scream, not even God. And in this place, there was no God, only the rich and famous. Last week, when I picked up the phone, a voice sprinkled with familiarity met my ear. It was the voice of someone I had heard before, sounding deep and curdled between a beast's lips. It was the museum curator, and I had not spoken to him in 15 years since the day he presented me with my contract. Hi there, boyo. He boomed. A hissing of stubble sounded through the archaic museum phone.

1:31:25Who is this? He bellowed a fat man's laugh. You don't recall? After a short chat, he coughed into the phone to break the ketchup. What I try to say, lad, is that I appreciate your commitment to the museum. that I do, that I do for the guest list tonight. He paused, murmuring gibberish as he read something. Yes, yes. Five will be attained to function tonight, four of which are guests. I nodded to myself. I was off the hook. But why was he calling me? Great, Al. The last attendee is not a guest. Rather, will be there for your aforementioned extengulation. I think my heart stopped. Excuse me? Oh, it's not all bad, chap.

1:32:08If the attention is incapacitated and able to carry out the claws of your contract, kill you, we'll be seeing you on time for next week. Cheerio. Phone clicked off. I see. That's funny. I like that it's just that casual. By the way, you're going to fucking die. By the way, a guy's coming. He's going to take all your blood. Good luck figuring out who it is. But if you can kill him first, you can still clock in. All right. See you next week. See you next week. Bye. It was a painful week after that night. My heart never left my throat. Every waking moment, my mind would drift and be reminded that someone was coming to the museum to end me.

1:32:46I suppose that was always a risk when giving tours to the deplorable brats that visited, but this was different. Whoever it was, their sole goal was to leave my body cold and lifeless. I checked my watch after I had finished polishing the mirror and began walking towards the enormous foyer. Uneasiness, as well as my turning stomach, almost made me forget I had to feed Tooth Fairy. Up the stairs I went and down the halls, passing the locksteel door on my way. I never opened that door, and it always tickled my curiosity that there was absolutely no way inside without a key. Besides, it was a matter for another time.

1:33:23The guests were going to arrive in 15 minutes. So was my executioner. I really hope the Tooth Fairy is fed with teeth. Oh, for sure. At the end of the flowing walls of the music and art exhibition was a dimly lit doorway that I rarely entered. Outside on a large golden placard of the entrance, Tooth Fairy. The room inside was a dark cube space with painted black walls. A single spotlight illuminated the painting hung in the center of the furthest wall. A horrifying face of an anguished man was brushed across the canvas that looked like a hairless burning corpse. Its mouth and eyes were vacant holes.

1:33:58Distant white specks could be made out in the open cavities of its face. Teeth, throatfuls, and eye sockets lined with hundreds of teeth. We were given this painting from a woman who saw the face move on her bedroom wall. Obviously, no art dealers would take her up on a donation. Our cleaners kept the teeth from our deceased visitors' corpses for a special reason. It's grotesque, sure, but completely necessary. From my maroon waistcoat pocket, I pulled a handful of bloody teeth and fit them snugly in the rim of the artwork's ornamental frame. Monthly feeding became a ritual, so he didn't leave the painting and walk the halls.

1:34:34I hated the times I forgot to feed him, the times he crawled out of the canvas dye and slogged around the halls looking for me. I checked my watch. It was 5.59. The museum was about to open. I think it's funny, and I understand with a situation like this, I guess upper management assumes there will be some death. Um, but the idea that this guy continuously leaves exhibits open, gets guests killed willingly or otherwise, uh, forgets to feed the tooth fairy that walks around the halls. And it's like, well, you know, he's new. He's got to learn the road. He's been there 15 years. Yeah. 15 years. That's child's play.

1:35:16Don't you know we're immortal? I think it's a thing where it's like, uh, it's gotta be a thing where it's like, he's the only person working there because he's not only like a tour guide he also like is maintenance he cleans shit it seems like he's the only person working there and they got him in a fucking blood contract now probably literally yeah yeah quickly adjusting my waistcoat and brushing my hair i came tapping down the marble staircase of the vast foyer two hands pulled open the enormous door as usual the rich folks sauntered into the museum on their invisible high horses by wandering eyes scanned and assessed them quickly.

1:35:52Any one of them could be my undoing. In the group of five, there was two men, one plump and stubby, another gaunt and scraggly. Out of the three women, two were bony and frightening to look at, like fleshy scarecrows with long, pompous noses. Lastly was a lady that was quite pale and beautiful, her eyes quite small in her face, which was framed by ash-black bangs in a ponytail. That woman, however, stood out to me long after we had begun the tour. The ponytail of hers didn't stick out from her rich girl high horse, rather her middle-class mannerism. She carried herself with the pride that was of a hardworking businesswoman, content and happy with her 9-to-5, not the accomplished grandeur of reeling in millions of dollars of fortune for multiple estates.

1:36:41Was this her? I took them through a couple exhibitions, passing the glass-walled hallways between our greenhouses where Holly had eaten a man the week before. They clapped at the Venus flytraps' enormous olive mouth as it twisted under the evening starlight, oblivious to its horrific history. Though maybe one of them knew. The one the curator had spoken to must have known everything. We had stopped at the paranormal wing. They saw Mariette for a while before their eyes, then set on something else. What's under here? A woman said, pulling out a display cabinet's blanket. Take a look. Pulling the fabric away with one shaky hand like a magician, terrified of failing a stunt.

1:37:20He had no human mouth nor teeth. His snout was the long, hairy tube appendage of a blowfly. You could see his black eyes and the incandescent light at certain angles. They had faded to pitch after many years of anguish and isolation in his glass prison. His face was a charcoal black, not gray. so was his gangly body that broke out wings and spiny limbs through his hairy graphite flesh there was no white in his eyes only a screen door patterned upon two bulging dark eyeballs that housed a thousand more he watched us unblinkingly through the glass one deformed wing buzzing and clicking moving half human half fly below the display on a golden placard it read Beelzebub.

1:38:06Oh, that's fun. That's a fun name. Yeah, exactly. It's just the devil. Well, Beelzebub means the lord of the flies, but the name is often applied to the devil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The woman in a long brunette ponytail leaned in and gawked, pressing her done-up lips against the glass with a clack as she turned her head to say, Or shouldn't he be in the insect exhibit guide? The thing inside the glass turned his revolting head to, as if it could understand her, as if he felt mocked. There were a couple of chuckles from the rich crowd. I saw a Titan though. They were upsetting him. He was there originally.

1:38:40Yes. I wiped one sweaty palm against my trousers. He was brought to the museum by an anonymous donor describing as being the product of experimental chemical warfare. That's fun. The lady nodded pensively. The thing buzzed inside the glass. However, our team quickly disproved this and our museum was unable to understand what the creature was, nor what happened to him. And so he rots his days away stuck in the paranormal wing. It's tragic, but necessary. I personally believe the person who donated him thought we were his last resort to dispose of him. Suddenly, one hairy feeler braced the glass and stuck against the barrier like a sickly black hoof.

1:39:18I felt queasy and wanted to move on, but the questions kept pouring. How did he get that name? A man's voice said from the back. Uh, in theology, Beelzebub was one of the seven princes of hell. In Ugaritic, the name roughly translates to the Lord of the Flies. Mize briefly caught the thing in the display cabinet, bending its head to the side like a confused dog, one disgusting tube snout rocking back and forth like a pacifier. Does it think? I mean, like you or I, we simply don't know. Not many staff come into this exhibition chamber, let alone try to interact with the pieces, so. Extending one arm forward, I ushered the crowd to walk on.

1:39:56We did for a while, till I noticed the woman with the black ponytail still pressed against the glass, gawking at the blowfly's body. Ma 'am? She pointed an index finger at it for a couple moments before speaking. I want to try to speak to him. He looks like he's in pain. I don't think that's a good... You? You probably pass him every day you work here. She interrupted, her tone searing me like a hot coal. Giving tours, cleaning cabinets, and not once have you tried to find out if he's still human in there. Her finger darted against the glass to his bulbous, hairy black head. I glared at her for a while and brooded.

1:40:34Did this museum guest have compassion? No, I swallowed. Was this her? The curator's inside woman? The one trying to kill me? If she got any closer to the fly, she'd be as good as dead. Thought I might be the collateral damage. We should move on. She snorted. No, I don't think we shall. The lady nodded her head towards the enclosure. Open it! You are welcome to try to communicate with it through the glass. Wrapped my knuckles against the boundary. She stared at me with shark eyes. With the glass, he's an animal. Without, he's equal. I want to speak to him as such. Now open the goddamn cabinet. I couldn't think straight anymore.

1:41:17Curator's game was plaguing me. This had to be her right. she's gonna let be elzebub free and kill us still i had a plan shouldn't there be i mean like even within this setting shouldn't there be a rule like one guest cannot kill all the other guests on a whim you know i would assume so i think it's just the rationale i think to at least giving it the benefit of the doubt in these in the situation the amounts the amount of pressure uh that you would get from these people and like you kind of are and also too they're not around it every day or they're not around these pieces every day so i feel like they keep doing all this childlike shit of just being like open the door and he's like okay well that's gonna kill us but then like specifically you can't do it or you can't like not obey them which also results on i guess you getting a death sentence so i don't know it'd be it that'd be a rough be a rough job to have let's just say yeah needless to say uh i also think that with it's interesting to me how beelzebub it's like a human fly hybrid and they're just like oh i think he's like us it's funny that like he's like snout like a like an elephant trunk or something yeah and they they call it the lord of the flies and i like how their empathy doesn't go to other people or anything but it's like this fly monster thing i'm i'm his friend i'm gonna be a savior i'm gonna make the connection like that's where the savior complex or savior complex or a thing of like well no one else is special and i feel like i could communicate with it like i feel like it would it would communicate with me it's like such a it's a very narcissistic like way of displaying that it's like girls when they say they can talk to animals or guys when they can talk to like uh never mind i can talk to animals do what i said i can talk to animals you can talk to animals yeah how do you talk to animals i say hello and they talk they talk back to me what do they say mostly bark bark and meow there's mostly well i guess in that sense we can all talk to animals huh yeah that's fun there's nothing preventing you from speaking your native language to an animal i suppose i guess it's the comprehension of it that's more uh more taxing i would never want to talk to my uh my bass on tug boat i feel like he would say horribly nasty things what do you think tugboat you you're a little harsh on tugboat sometimes he's a son of a bitch i i understand that he puts you through the ringer sometimes sometimes sometimes i'll see him look at you and he's like oh hunter and you're like you stupid disgusting first off he doesn't say oh hunter he looks at me with his paper thin face and these two giant fucking jawbreaker size eyes just drooping out of their eye sockets and he just I could tell I'm like in a moment's notice like you know that thing where it's like oh yeah if you die you're like over time your animals would eat you or whatever right that happens already I'm not even dead and I know that tugboats like at any time I could eat that fat son of a bitch and it would taste delicious see i feel like that's a bad read i feel like crawdad would be more likely to eat you crawdad no she's sweet she's a beautiful beautiful creature yeah but i feel like she's playing the long con because you're like oh crawdad little blah blah blah and she's like kind or whatever and i feel like she would okay now you're going to make me horrified of the animal i like most my house okay that's that's unnecessary and extremely cruel she's a sweet baby angel between Between my two dogs, I feel like Ollie would certainly eat me first, even though he's like the sweeter of the two.

1:44:55Even though he's the sweeter of the two, he'd be sad about. Then he'd be like, well, don't want it to go to waste. A man's got to eat. Man's got to eat. Meanwhile, Benny would be like barking and like crapping himself and spinning in circles, falling across the floor, losing his mind. He would just go hungry. He would starve. Yeah, but not out of love, out of like fear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. i don't know what's going on so what i didn't know they could do that i've never seen that happen before yeah and meanwhile ollie's like well yeah he doesn't have any teeth anymore so he just tried to gum my lifeless corpse until something tore off i feel like you would be i feel like someone could gum you i think you probably i feel you could get i could i could see your your body being eaten by gum by being what are you saying that my flesh just looks that palpable?

1:45:46I think it's just I feel like you look like you're made of jello. It's a crazy thing to say about a man. What do you mean by that? I don't know. Whenever you were in person and we're obviously we're separate now and but I remember I remember very distinctly being like this is dude he just looks like he's made of jello. I have no way to do it. Also you kept touching your arms and stuff and it would like indent in a weird way. Are you calling me like fat? No, I'm not calling you fat. I'm just saying you're like shiny you're sheen you're like a uh you're like jello you make me think of jello like a mole because i have smooth skin i'm made of jello no no see you're trying to make sense of something that might not make a lot of sense i'm saying that i just look at you and i'm like he looks like he's made of jello that's why i just was saying that if your dog who has no teeth i'm like you probably could eat them slip slurp it down like jello i don't know i don't i don't have all the reasonings of the world dude i'm a big fat man do you think i look like jello i think i look more like uh i think i would never say that about a man i respect like a cheese curd that's what i think i look like would you say you respect me hunter as a man oh absolutely okay all right because i don't think i could say a man i respect look like jello i think jello's i think it's a delicious dish i think that it's it's timeless see that's the thing i wouldn't i wouldn't think about i wouldn't compare my well you're not friends to tasty pastries and treats and desserts you're not an obese man named hunter because that's all i do everyone has some kind of food category i'm like i don't know even my wife what's your wife my wife looks like a chicken wing to me she's a chicken wing yeah salty your wife's a drumstick yes exactly no wing wing you said a wing yeah okay what's Harry General Chow's chicken okay just kidding I knew I knew I'd set that one up on purpose I knew it Harry you leave that one in you cut that immediately oh no what okay here's the real one what about Nick Nick oh god like yo I sunflower seeds is what I think that's such a good one for Nick.

1:47:57That's such a perfect... I would say, yeah, a handful of sunflower seeds. Yeah. The ranch ones. The ranch-dusted ones. Good God. I'm already... My mouth is already dry. Anyway, Beelzebub, fly thing. My shaky hand gripped the master key and slowly fumbled it into the cabinet's lock. Inside, the abomination sucked its tube snout pacifier back and forth in excitement. Its thousands of eyes saw fresh meat. He was hungry. The woman reached her arm around and climbed into the cabinet with the creature, her expensive slippers getting across the floor with a screech. She was talking brave before, but confronted with the towering, contorted thing ahead, the lightning painted her pale face a horrid grimace.

1:48:46At that moment, she knew she wanted to get out. The back of the woman still hung out past the cabinet's doorframe in case she needed a quick exit. She didn't dare stand fully inside the flies enclosure. So how big is the enclosure? I thought it was like a four foot tall thing on the ground, but is it like, like head height? I kept picturing like a glass coffin or something, but I'm guessing that it might be because I almost thought that he was laying down and they were like looking down in, but I'm guessing that it's like, maybe like a little, maybe just like a little glass room then. Yeah. Yeah, maybe.

1:49:18My heart was beating out of my chest. She was going to let him out and Beelzebub shall suck my flesh through his face straw like a human strawberry milkshake. Breathing was hard. I felt like I was going to pass out. Without warning, I kicked the woman forward. God! God! You're trying to kill me! Just pushes her in really quick. You're supposed to be the hero here. What the fuck? In front of a bunch of witnesses, too. My foot planted itself on her back, and she went tumbling into the enclosure and against the far end of the glass, screaming, screaming. I shut and locked the door swiftly. The curator will not have my head this evening.

1:49:57I found her. She's the one who wants me dead. Help me! Gasps with the crowd behind me sounded like they were wheezing into balloons. I leaned one hand against the door. You wanted to speak to him face to face. The abomination was reanimated. Spiny insectoid hooks spread from its hairy half-human flesh. It spread and beat its ghoulish torn wings. It was ready to feast. What the hell are you doing? What the hell are you doing? One of the men behind me shouted. I turned my head to him. Complying. Suddenly, the woman's drumming fist did something the frail insect's hooves never could. She smashed a hole in the cabinet from the inside and came tumbling out onto the floor in a cascade of glass.

1:50:37Oh, God. One of the pompous rich men laughed. He turned to run, but the buzzing monstrosity caught him. From its glass prison. I like to think he's like, he turns to run. No! No! No! it'll definitely be out by the time this episode goes up. But for the puppet show, which of the screams of mine did you go with? I know. I can't remember. We're still messing with it right now. We'll see. Okay. I love that in scream so much. It's definitely a good scream. Don't worry. It's in there. I need to use it somewhere. Even if you don't.

1:51:22from its glass prison it spurted from its mouth tube slime covered the man's face like sage jelly dotted with smaller black blowflies it was like something out of my nightmares of sophia the blowflies bored holes into his flesh into his cheeks crawling didn't get him far the flies were already digging digging he screamed and the rest of the guest screamed too flies buried under his cheeks and came crawling out through the corners of his eyes. Red gaping holes emerged beneath skin that popped like peach colored balloons filled with bloody paint. The flies were even inside his gums and the man screamed.

1:51:58He screamed and screamed until the screams were no more until it was just me alone beside his corpse with the flies that crawled and squirmed inside his spiny flesh suit. On my knees I vomited against a marble wall my hand meeting his pool of life fluid on the floor sanguinated. Beelzebub's mouth tube met one of the man's calves and sucked chunks of his fleshy soup up with a therp like Satan's vacuum cleaner. From crawling to standing, I broke into a sprint, managing to steady by dragging my hand against the marble as I ran, leaving trails of bloody finger-painted lines, a grotesque artwork only the tooth fairy could appreciate.

1:52:35My feet skidded around the ground as I bolted around the corners, past the living wall and deep-sea exhibition. At the end of one hallway, my eye caught her ponytail that darted into the museum's theater. She was up to something. Her plan failed. Now she was finding something else to kill me. Inside, the theater was vast and ornate, with rows upon rows of silky lilac seats. Marble balconies reached out over the stage like great, expensive white clouds. Small holes projected streams of light from the theater's corners, ceiling, and stage. A brilliant blue humpback whale suspended in shifting light floated from the entrance beside me.

1:53:15Downhill the slope of seats before blubbering and disappearing into the wall as the projectors flickered. Specks of light from its shooting spout had hit my face like droplets of rain and felt like cold fingers against my cheek. For a short lifespan, our theater and its holograms were real. The brunette woman didn't know that, though. She was my executioner. Maybe she did. Do we know for sure that she's actually the killer? No. He very well could just be haunting a regular woman. All right, so he'd be playing. Sure. If that's what you want to describe it. Okay, man, fuck you. She'd be playing.

1:53:54I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how to respond with you speaking in this current vernacular. So wherever you want to take it, I guess. She'd be playing, I guess. I slowly stepped down the staircase. She was shaking, screaming at me from the stage, her voice echoing in the enormous decorative room. Get away from me! I stepped closer, closer. She didn't stop screaming. You, you rocked me in the cabinet with... As she trailed off, the lights dimmed to a pitch black. The next show was about to commence. Oh boy. Trumpets suddenly boomed and shook the theater. Spotlights illuminated a single holographic soldier cleaning his rifle to the right of the stage.

1:54:35The next showing was a war performance I'd seen many times before. My heart was beating in my chest. The fly was searching the halls for more food, and we were the closest feast. I was pleading for us to leave at the top of my lungs over the loud, roaring trumpets, barely hearing my own voice. The woman backed away, tears streaming down her face and distorting her mascara. As if possessed by the museum, the soldier finished cleaning his rifle, turned, and gave me a sickening grin. White light flickered a show of revoltingly sharp teeth as he loaded his rifle. I had watched his presentation hundreds of times, and this was a first.

1:55:11I screamed. The trumpets boomed and boomed. She kept walking backwards, away from me and into the soldier's line of fire. My mouth was agape. My shrink rumbled my lungs with reverb, my soundless voice tearing away at my coarse throat. The holographic bullet tore through her skull, a hammer meeting fleshy coconut. Bits of blood and brain painted chicken pox specks of death upon my maroon waistcoat. And the projected soldier showed teeth. I thought back to the mirror I'd cleaned earlier. Scatter brain. Animated. The museum's horrifying specter slowly bent to one knee and began loading his rifle with a non-existent bullet.

1:55:50That's really cool that like the hologram thing comes to life and shoots her. Yeah. And it actually is able to fucking like blow our brains out or whatever. Like it's, it's, yeah, that's, that's pretty, it's almost like magical. like the hologram you expect to be like a technical projection but it ends up being like a spirit or like a ghost yeah yeah I tumbled over seats and stairs as I sprinted from the stage towards the entrance holes tearing away at the lilac fabric of the chairs as he shot opening flaps like blooming for Benna flowers I might have thrown up again if I didn't have to keep running Beelzebub slogged behind me distantly at the end of the hallway his spiny hooked feet screeching against the marble Buzzing mocked me from behind as a deformed wing that was never meant to fly twitched in the starlight that flooded over his hairy thorax.

1:56:37Guests were still screaming in the foyer. They darted in every angle like shaken ants. My hand reached for the museum's front door. My lady executioner was dead, but my eyes were traumatized with gore. I couldn't bear it anymore. I reached to pull the door open and the museum's phone rang. Once again, my heart felt like it stopped beating. I let go of my shaky grip around the cold door handle What if the guy who got killed by the fly Was the actual killer I think that's what it is, yeah and then because because i was going to say he's got it's got to be something where he he he thinks that he he thinks that he's figured it out but then it turns out that you know the person that he was so sure was not the person you know yeah yeah i certainly think so i let go of my shaky grip around the cold door handle up the stairs i went wiping one sweaty hand against my trouser leg reluctantly i reached for the phone hello i really like how they're being chased by the fly thing and he's about to leave with everyone and he's like oh one second yeah gotta go get that Oh guide Sound of the plump curator Pulling from his cigarette Your debt punishment has been paid None of tonight's guests were anything special I swallowed sour spit My throat was tight What do you mean?

1:57:59The middle class volunteers on luxury Sponsored trip to a private museum None were there for the exagulation And boyo did you prove that you belong here Or what?

1:58:11it just sent a bunch of normal people in and it's like let's see if he kills them turns out that uh turns out that turns out that the uh guide is also a fucking sadistic monster as well so that's fun yeah oh i know i'm gonna tell him i'm gonna tell the guide that they're gonna kill him and then i'm gonna see him kill a bunch of normal people but see that explains why This woman is the, is the one who's like, uh, oh, well maybe you should have some empathy for this. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You walk by him every day and you don't ever just fucking sit there and talk to him, which it seems like it's coming from like a snooty place.

1:58:46But it's like, no, he's to be fair though. The guy has been what gas lit for 15 years, whatever. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a mind game against him for sure. Yeah. But it's just a group of normal people who's like, we get to see a cool museum. And then the guide unleashes me.

1:59:04oh my god oh my god yeah exactly

1:59:13that's fun that's a really fun twist i like that yeah he looks up he's like you're all normal people yeah oh shit i slammed the phone on my reception desk the sound of plastic echoing throughout the foyer and ringing in my ears the bs about just walking around with this like snort just doing this is like sucking it out sorry it's like a train station almost and his office is like a desk that overlooks the foyer and he's like oh my gosh what have i done and meanwhile on the ground like people being ripped apart yeah guys it's the it's the worst version of undercover boss imaginable we sit five normal people to see what the guy does kills everyone with the fly monster Yeah, exactly.

2:00:01They're all just dead. A gold feeling flooded my chest. My horrible realization dismantled me. This week, the guests never did anything particularly dreadful. It was me alone who had cornered them into hell from fear of losing my own life. My punishment from the curator was never death. It was torment. Was I a monster too? Yes. Yes. For a while, I cried in the foyer. as he's crying they're still just getting dismantled yeah open the door

2:00:39I have got a lot of learning to do after today there's three of them like crying trying to break down the door and it's eating one of them right next to him please god

2:00:54I've got to see a therapist. I've got to start talking to someone about good golly. Wait, does the, does the health plan coverage do it? He starts like flipping through a manual and like they're getting, you see an arm fly through the air behind him. Like he had fucking smashed into the door. I cried in the foyer, oblivious to the screaming and carnage unfolding throughout the museum. Okay. So that is what's happening. it's not even not even dressing it up like as he's here having a mental breakdown it's just

2:01:31tears flow down my face and stained paperwork of dead gas he's actively like writing the names he's like looking over the balcony someone gets their head ripped off he's like and there's another one added to the list oh geez he's like drinking up there if only someone could open that door right there with this key that i'm holding oh well my hand's still shaking from fear and dread from the museum's looming and reanimated monstrosities beelzebub was coming i didn't like what i was becoming it's gonna leave this dreadful museum no matter the price all right so now that's the end of part three into part four so now it's basically saying that this is his plan of like are we trying to assume by the end of part three he's like that was the straw that broke the camel's back yeah all of the people that he definitely got all the normal people he a million percent killed himself yes yeah I think that's I think that was the place like I've got to get out of I have I actually have a question for you this is this made me pop up here a little bit with the tour guide and stuff if this was a night at museum thing who was the Robin Williams of this museum you know who's the guy who's like the because Robin Williams is like the the one statue that helps it's i believe it's theodore roosevelt or whatever but that's the one that's the guy who helps ben stiller the whole time who would be this guy for this museum i think the implication is it'd be marriott right oh sure yeah i guess that's true well i was gonna say i was trying to think like i mean he's obviously freaked out by her oh you're saying it wouldn't be like epstein would the equivalent be yeah like epstein's coming around.

2:03:07And he's walking around.

2:03:11You know what I mean? I was like, I was like wondering who that, who that character would be. No, it'd probably be like a serial killer. That's like in there, like, like his body, like put up. That would be a mind fuck of a friendship, wouldn't it? I hate you. I hate you as a person, but yeah, it's like the statue is pretty cool. It's Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, geez. Looks like you messed up. That's okay, man. and hold your head up. You're like, fuck you, Jeffrey Dahmer. I don't need you. Thank you, Mr. Dahmer. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Jeffrey.

2:03:45All right, part four. Subtitle is Today I Made My Escape. There were two unopened doors at the museum that had always haunted me since I started. The first being the locked steel door I had passed countless times at the museum, yet remained locked and never accessible. A peculiar haunting that amounted from itching curiosity. It had been swimming around in my mind since that young girl visited the museum a few weeks ago, and her curiosity prodded away at its potential. Secondly, and more horrifyingly, was the shut doorway to Johnny Razortung's display, the only exhibition I never entered out of unadulterated fear.

2:04:22I love part four. It's like, yeah, well, then there's Johnny Razortung. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, though. I mean, like, listen, I get it. I mean, like... I don't, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't really feel like a scary name to me, but also like, I just fucking wish that, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Johnny Razortong is definitely not as bad as the sleepy man or whatever. So whatever. No, I think the name's fine. I'm saying, I'm saying that earnestly, like for the kind of like a harebrained nature of the story. It's funny that in part four, it's like, oh yeah, Johnny Razortong.

2:04:58Yeah, well, you know, you got to shut the doorway. Can't let Johnny Razortong, can't let him out. Excuse me? You want to say that name again, but slower? Johnny Razortongue is to blame as to why Mariette, the previous guide, the one that walked the museum's halls before me, went mad. It's been said that his plastic ventriloquist dummy tongue only speaks in mind-shattering truths or lethal lies. He chooses either truth or lie based on whatever brings him the most entertainment at the time from his deprived, sealed exhibition cell in the corner of our paranormal wing. His disturbed mind knows only disarray, and it thrives in all manners of consequences from his cruelty.

2:05:36Mariette knew this all too well. The dummy poured pestilence into her ear from the moment she visited him, contorting and twisting her once fortified mind like molten glass under his heated will. And so Mariette's ill-fated psyche bent. It bent and bent until Mariette was no more, until all that remained of the old guide was her doll-like shell after she gave in to Johnny's razor tongue. After she believed his lies After she injected herself with plastic To become a ventriloquist dummy Just like him After she decided to please the museum And to please Johnny Nothing remained but her tortured soul Inside of her plasticized and reanimated body That's a fun little bit of lore As in like The things inside the museum also trick you Also too just Marionette being An old tour guide That goes pretty hard And it does make me think that our tour guide is maybe not going to have a similar fate, but I do wonder if something is going to sway or tempt him at the end as well.

2:06:37I could see him befalling some terrible fate, and I think it will have to do with that door that's been mentioned I think so too. They got to talk about it, right? It's been that. I'm wondering how much of the museum owner or director, like the big fat British guy or whatever, I wonder how much of that is actually real or if it's something inside of the museum fucking with him or like directing him in some kind of way Could be that's where the curator is down in the cell or something You can see that It was snowing the day I decided to leave the museum My hand braced the cold window pane iced with white clumps and the warmth sucked out of my hand easily like cigarette smoke Years prior when I had started as the museum's tour guide I received word that my daughter's cancer had taken her A letter That's all I was given by the oncology ward the hospital informed me that my daughter had passed away by mail which meant she had been dead for a few days before the paperwork actually arrived the fact of that shattered me i decided i would rather live with the burden of insanity before carrying on in this cruel world with the burden of a child dying thinking back it had been snowing that day too before deciding to venture to johnny's exhibit to let his toxic words take me just as he had mariette snow outside reminded me of holding her gloved hand at wintertime shows, and her face in my mind's eye begged me to keep living.

2:08:04I didn't visit him that day. No, until recently. I felt no obligation to ever try and break my contract and leave the museum anymore. Sophia, my world, my darling, was dead. Why would I ever leave? I could stay and hold the ghastly hand of her ghoulish reflection against the interface of our museum's horrifying haunted mirrors here sofia was with me and i was never alone yeah i like that i like the uh the idea that the museum is kind of a placeholder for this like mental prison he's put himself in rather than confronting the reality outside of it you know yeah let's say uh i always like a nice story with like trying to process grief or being unable to let go and using a uh using a setting or a place that's i think it's really cool that it's like a literal house of horrors but it's like he knows that she's there and she can see him but a lot of the time it seems like he can't even stomach to look at her it's like he knows it's wrong you know like he knows that it's like i'm torturing myself and that's that's really fun yeah i i like the format where it's very uh it's because like you said it is like a little shop of horrors sort of thing on its own but it works as a placeholder for his mental state uh which from the out get of this story is more than i was expecting and i do like that touch not to say the story was bad but just i didn't think the whimsical nature of it would lend itself to something that heavy you know no well like i said too then the farther on you get with these things i always feel like they're opening more up to like why and how and asking more stuff about the characters and it always lends itself in a really fun way like even like that tidbit in the first section would have been awesome of like i i feel like but i don't i just don't think it's that kind of writing although like we've heard from like imperial invective and stuff it's like you kind of just you kind of get one parts and if something kind of latches then you want to elaborate on it so it's just kind of like you know trying to get as many turtles to the ocean as you can before really diving into one yeah yeah stopping to gaze up at the enormous foyer i was reminded that I too was an anguished exhibition in this rich man's contraption.

2:10:20The poor guy had to push and pull at, the man who survived 15 years of torment. Look at his hollow eyes, the wealthy visitors probably thought. Look how dead inside he looks. No more misery. My daughter wouldn't want me to wither away like this, a pawn at the hands of the rich and famous. It was going to be freedom or death. On my way to visit Johnny, I found myself walking past the locked steel door, past the arts and music exhibition and downstairs next to the living wall and into the paranormal exhibition. Something caught my eye. It was Mariette, the reanimated plastic shell of the previous guide, in her display.

2:10:59She clicked her pale joint stiffly and fluttered her heavy eyelids against tough friction. She was deceased and on show, but her soul was still very much alive, A soul that pushed her hand up and against her glass prison as if to say, Stop, guide. Look what Johnny did to me. What he's going to do to you. I'm sorry, Mariette, I thought. Believe it or not, Johnny's going to help me leave this horrible place. Oh, you dumb son of a bitch. Yeah. Unless he has a really smart trick, I don't think that's what's going to happen. No, yeah. You have to tell me a truth that only relates to the structure of the museum itself.

2:11:39go well it always it always it's funny when it's just like you know that thing that tricked you and uh you know put you into this place where you're cat like you're basically stuck in this prison forever well i actually outsmarted them and i can do it it's always funny when a character thinks that because you're always just like how much smarter do you think you are than the other people who worked here yeah you know i'm gonna beat the immortal trickster me yeah i'm gonna be Johnny Razortong. You know, the thing that live forever is and is an anomaly in itself. I win. Me, a guy. Hello. I was so focused on organizing my plan to see the dummy and to leave the museum, I'd almost forgotten to feed Ernie.

2:12:20I can never forget about Ernie. Beyond the insect exhibition hallway and to the left was our animals and evolution room. It's quite frankly rather dull, but Ernie always stood out to me like a hairy clawed thumb. I found myself walking swiftly through the marble halls, climbing upon the balcony that stretched above the open-plan exhibition room. From the balcony overlooking his iron-barred pen, I tossed him heads of purple and green lettuce, which he chomped with an effortless crunch. See, Irani was a bear-sized mole, and he had a secret. He was a gentle giant, and I loved it. It was so difficult to find a kind soul in this abominable place, so I kept a secret.

2:13:01I found the hole he had dug through to the museum's garden And let him have at it He could have his freedom if I couldn't Completely dreading it I took my time on my way back to the paranormal wing Visiting Johnny was a necessary evil The plan was based around the belief That I was well adjusted enough to figure out If Johnny was telling me a truth or a lie And adjust my plan to leave the museum accordingly With new information I like this guy like yeah well I'm smart enough to know if it's a truth or a lie even if it's like earth shattering reality bending information and you know what I feel like that can help me walk out the door well just how incompetent not incompetent but just how surprised and kind of like he doesn't have a shit together every instance we've seen he's like been running away or he's like you know I left the fucking door open yeah it just makes you think like yeah you've been there for over 15 years but I don't think that really gives you I don't know any kind of advantage I don't know Let's keep in mind That he has killed Five completely normal people Because he was paranoid one of them was going to Sanguinate him but you know what at least Rosie lived Yeah I saved Rosie by pushing another guy Into Venus flytrap and might have had it coming But those five people I released Beelzebub on totally Totally innocent if he lied I would in turn unveil it Flipping his line on his head and use the opposite, a truth, to my advantage.

2:14:2815 years of experience as the tour guide was behind my back, something Mariette never had when his words broke her down. Coming accustomed to the museum's horrors had made my mind a steel fortress. Wrong. Though, I just hope Johnny couldn't melt my mind as easily as he did Mariette's. Oh no, I'm sure. Yeah, buddy, you got it. Real steel trap in my mind. Mr. Crying as the fly is eating people two feet behind you. you are a vessel a specimen I have a feeling Johnny Razortung is just gonna be like your daughter's dead and he's gonna be like why and he's just like fall down to the ground no no no no no yeah he walks in the room and like Johnny starts to say something and then it's like you wanna pull up a chair have a drink you look like you could use it Yeah, no mind-breaking needs done on you, big boy.

2:15:27My master key met the rustic, untouched lock and twisted with a clank. With one slow, reluctant pull, I opened the door to the ventriloquist doll's chamber for the first and hopefully last time. It was foolish of me to assume the lights would still turn on after 15 years. I turned to grab the torch from my hip. I catch a Marriott a few meters behind me in her display. based in a way in disgust from the room, which had been her demise years ago. Swallow tightly, and smacked my flashlight alive against my palm. I like the idea that, uh, like the museum was cruel enough to place her right next to Razortong.

2:16:07Like, she's in earshot, so, like, for eternity, Razortong's in there like, you look a little fat in that dress. Oh yeah, you can't change it. Forgot about that. Your daughter's dead. Get out of my head! How would you know that? Yeah. How would you possibly know that? He's like, you scream and cry about it all the time. Yeah, he's just saying completely mundane stuff like you've worked here 15 years. Oh my gosh! Yeah, exactly. You're never going to renovate that car you've always wanted to renovate. Oh, fuck! Don't see it! The same socioeconomic factors that led to the 2008 housing crisis are likely to occur again.

2:16:53No! No, no, no, no, no! How would you know that? Another recession is due at some time in the future. It can't be!

2:17:09Johnny was sitting on a black stool in the center of the small room. The light from my torch lit up his pale skin Which contrasted against his baby sized tuxedo From the corners of his lips Straight downward to his chin Were thick red lines Cutting into his plastic face Or in a mouth His voice was croaky Yet dripping in sickening enthusiasm Hiya Michael His words had already broken me What do you mean? Already broken you? He said hi! Literally his name he said hello and he's like yeah i think i have an advantage in this situation his words had already broken me it's two words what is his name literally knew his name and he's like get out of my head yeah oh my god it's it's on his badge it's not even it's not even he doesn't even know his name he just saw it on his like fucking badge on his like a uniform still yeah You guys name tag, yeah.

2:18:07Oh my gosh! A decade even. I was lucky to even remember it. After a while, my name simply became Guide. But how? How could he? Buddy, pal. His eyes wandered loosely in his sockets, left and right, rolling marbles as he spoke. How's it hanging, Mikey? There was no dust on his coned hair, nor suit, as you would expect for an animated plastic whore who kept tidy by wandering the confines of his room. His mouth was ever smiling as he leaned to one side Ben, how's my girl? Stiff dummy frame moved and peered at Mariette over my shoulder behind me I feel like it's gotta be more of like a Nardwar Oh! Isn't she just gorgeous now, Mikey?

2:18:49Look at this plastic shine! I think that's the correct tone But the Jeff the Killer corpse husband thing also works for me So I'll leave it up to your discretion Okay But I do feel like the story is going for the Nardwar I think it is yeah we have to know You're Mikey Oh isn't she just gorgeous now Mikey Look at that plastic shine Or I guess it could be Menacing if it's like in a jigsaw Kind of voice you know Which is the same as the corpse I want to play a game Yeah but it's just the amount of like Exclamation points Very bombastic Yeah it's almost like The Jester Harlequin kind of character Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:19:33Which at first I was wondering if this is supposed to be a take on Jeff the killer or even like a Tommy Taffy kind of guy. Yeah, I feel like it's in that tone. That kind of archetype or whatever. Yeah, yeah. This thing was revolting, I thought. And? Johnny turned his stiff head to me, smirking under the bright torchlight. How's your girl? Dead in a hole, Mikey? Oh, gosh. yeah immediately my mind was thrown into oblivion it's like get out of there mike yeah this is what what are you gonna there's nothing he's gonna say that'll help you i really i really love a character though who's just like i'm ready i've never been more ready and then someone's like hey mikey oh my god i forgot my name was mikey yeah as a guy who is trying to go up against a mind demon uh probably good idea to remember base facts about reality like your name i would assume so yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i i feel like mariette did already substantially better i mean already this guy mikey just walked into that basement he didn't check his name tag he didn't check the calendar he doesn't know what year it is and he was like there's nothing about reality this thing can lie to me with like okay my stomach plummeted.

2:20:55I would have torn his tiny, disgusting head off in an instant if I didn't need him. The puppet laughed with a menacing whine. Sophia? She riding in the dirt? My fists clenched and the spotlight from my torch shook over him like the light from a swinging chandelier. Maggot's probably crawling all out of her cheeks, eh, Mikey? Stop! Suddenly burst out, my echo carrying for a while through the empty halls of the museum. For a while, he sat quietly on the stool, his legs freely kicking the air like a kid sitting on the edge of a pier. He stared up at me with horrifying, glassy eyes and a devilish smile that never quit.

2:21:39I'm leaving the museum for good at six o 'clock. I gulped, watching his every move for hints of the truth or lie response that was about to come out of his plastic mouth. What do you think about that, Johnny? His head suddenly spun around several times as he spoke. Wow wee Freddo! I have lots to think about! I do, I do! For a while, I watched his puppet eyes roll around and show only why. He was contemplating, of sorts. You won't find any freedom outside, Mikey! His mouth pulled open mechanically, clasped shut as he spoke. Oh, you will find freedom! One tiny arm beckoned me to lean closer, and I did.

2:22:17He was whispering when he spoke. Through the steel door. What? He leaned back on his stool, one plastic square chin dancing in the light as he laughed to himself.

2:22:30I thought about it for a while. That steel door has remained sealed since I started this awful job. He kept chuckling to himself before abruptly going quiet. His eyes were locked and the old guy behind me. Oh, Marida? He called out a childish croak. I slammed the door shut and locked the door. Outside that room's tense atmosphere, I felt like I could breathe again. If only I could have gotten more information out of Johnny than a simple, straightforward lie. To avoid the lie of entering the steel door would be no drama. All I'd have to do is run from the museum. Always thought I would have to do.

2:23:06When I checked my watch and saw it was five minutes to six, I came bolting around into an enormous foyer. Gas would be arriving in a matter of minutes. I feel like there's a very quick interaction with Johnny Razortung. I feel like he probably is right that he has to go through the steel door because, again, he said that razor tongue gives you a truth or lie based on whatever amuses him. And because there's no real freedom on the outside, it would amuse him for Johnny to have to come to that. I think that could be something that is I was even thinking that the door could Like just because the author has Made this Kind of Or has presented this grief angle It could be a thing where once you leave the museum Are you ever Can he let go of that Of his child That's what I assume That's where I think we're heading And it would amuse Razortongue for him to get in that position, I think.

2:24:06Maybe that's why Mariette back in the day was presented with something that she was unwilling to leave or thought that it was the wrong choice or just something along those lines. The towering ornate museum door opened with its usual mechanical groan. I pushed past a man with a salt and peppered beard, his blustering coat nearly catching my face in the cold wind. Lady weather was against me this evening, but the plan was already in motion. The plan was to run. I almost tumbled when one of the rich pricks snagged me by my arm as I jogged down the stairs. I couldn't hear exactly what he said. A swirling breeze swam in my eardrums like a cold stream, a sound that I didn't often hear from inside the rich man's prison.

2:24:44It was beautiful. Every step into the museum's wide frozen garden made a gentle hush beneath my shoe in the soft snow. I couldn't look back until I met the tree line. When I did, I noticed a few of the men that gave chase. I launched through the spiny bushes ahead, head, taking exaggerated steps over rough terrain like a horse that walked with a proud gallop. Cuts and scratches against my flesh from branches felt liberating. It was painful, but it was not the museum's contraptions hurting me anymore. It was the fresh lashes of wild, unpredictable freedom. I'm almost free, Sophia. I felt the warmth of my daughter smiling down on me.

2:25:22She wants me to be free. A deep voice of one of my pursuers boomed through the forest with reverb and my heart spiked in my wheezing chest. guide they were closing in though why were they after me i left the door wide open for them turn around and burn the museum down you horrible bastards there was no doubt in my mind that if i stopped one of the rich brutes would bash the brain juice out of my skull with a sharp rock how dare i suffering guide threaten the fun of their wealthy expedition and take off into the woods quick clapping and crunching of bark behind me made my ears prick without warning One red silk shoulder of my waistcoat was snagged in an angry bald fist before I was yanked backward, making me tumble into mud and muck.

2:26:04I pulled my head up with a groan, my joints aching dully, skin searing like a full-body carpet burn. The museum guest straddling my chest was a mere silhouette, the backdrop of stars behind his head only lighting up graying hair at the edges. His cold fingers met my throat, tightening, tightening. Wriggling left to right was hard with legs against my chest. Clumps of snow fell gently onto my face and bites of cold as his hands crushed my neck. I swung and swung at his kidney with my fist, but he didn't let up. Stars above became a blur, and the top of his head filled the bottom of my vision. One of my keys I had clenched between my knuckles punctured aside, and it went rolling down a snowy bank.

2:26:46Gripping my purple bruised throat, I stumbled forward, but wheezing meant I was getting enough air to keep up a jog. Stop! His voice called. With each step, snow had seemingly gotten thicker, though it still gave way to my feet with the same distinct hush I couldn't let up. Not when I was this close. Yonder the snowy bank in front of me was a large building I had never seen before. It was quite smaller than the museum, bigger than the off-site cottage I slept in during my days off. A warehouse. It didn't take long to limp to it and break inside. The smell of rotten wood and mold inside the warehouse scrawled up my nose like invisible, pungent fingers.

2:27:25Bars of starlight came through boarded windows, covering the walls and floor in crooked, glowing streaks of the moon's azure silver gleam. It was dusty, unkempt, dry, grimy particles coated and tickled my throat. The dust in the building was so awful that my cough might have looked like a billowing steam. Silhouettes of all shapes and sizes lined the walls and shelves, most with flaps of paper attached to them. It was a haven for retired exhibitions. That, or their hell. Thudding came from behind me as someone pushed and pulled at the door, trying to follow me inside. Unsettled flakes of crumbling wood drifted down from the ceiling with every shake from the banging door.

2:28:04The shoddy place couldn't possibly hold the wealthy brood outside for long. As my heart raced, my departed Sophia's face suddenly glowed on the black canvas on my tight eyelids. I think I'll be seeing you soon, darling. I stumbled forward, coughing and glaring around the murky warehouse as the thuds became impatient. I needed something to get me out of here. Anything. Where do you think you're going? A man's muffled voice boomed from under the door. It was the same man who had gripped me by my throat minutes prior. His tone was strained and fed up. I pictured his face flush and the cables of his neck sticking out of his thick roots.

2:28:40My cold digits wrapped around one of the planks sealing a window, boarded shut. My options of fight or flight narrowed to the latter. But the door was stubbing against something But not for much longer One of the lines of light pouring inside the dingy space Sparkled upon something a few feet away made out of glass I walked closer Each step the floorboard spat out a dying croak When I was near enough to make out what the thing was A cold feeling bloomed in my stomach So this is basically like they just set old stuff They don't want in the museum anymore, right? I think so What also all seems And I might be stretching with this but does it all seem like things that people are like wanting to let go?

2:29:21And now they're being, they're being like, I'm trying to see if there's an angle between the grief that this guy is experiencing with losing his daughter and potentially the quote unquote evil or like horrible things that people are also trying to disregard that are now on display for other people to be like amused by. That's what I'm wondering. I can see that. If it's all being stacked up and like, granted some of them are like monsters or something, but what, what, like what place does it come from? You know? Yeah. But it does seem like it's all, you know, disregarded. Right. The thing I approached in the blanketing dim starlight was animatronic and ghoulish clumps of its brown artificial and fraying fur were clumped together in sticky balls of black grease.

2:30:06It's glass tennis ball eyes held tiny startling black pinhole sized pupils. It was a human-sized depiction of a vintage stuffed monkey holding brass symbols. Stuffing had come away from its middle in spongy yellow bunches, exposing rusty metal gears within a mechanical chest. I tried not to make eye contact with it out of fear of it following my gaze. I still had to think quickly about defending myself. The door hadn't stopped thudding. Messily stuck to one free ear of the mechanic being were a few pages of forms, faded and dusty. I puffed away dirt from the paper with one labored wheeze. Read, exhibition name, Kelsey.

2:30:48Children's mechanical mascot that once educated schools about the importance of healthy teeth and gums. I hadn't noticed it until now. Large and eerily human-shaped teeth struck out from the monkey's fur lips. An animatronic monkey to tell your kids to brush their teeth, of course. Out of commission, 1983. Reason? Excessive homicidal tendencies Signed and approved Marriott So it's Freddy Fazbear

2:31:21It's gotta be that right? Yeah he walks into the cabin And like the lights light up And it's playing the song Arr arr arr arr Arr arr arr Arr arr arr arr You know what's kind of That introduces a fun angle though I kind of wish we would have gotten to the other Because I know we're on four or five And I do like the idea of them accepting items And it's like new shit that's being added to the museum That's a pretty fun angle too Yeah, yeah And also like what kind of museum is it where it's like Ah, the possessed murder monkey Everyone's seen that You know

2:31:59Marietta and I Connected by threads of time after all these years It must have been an especially terrifying item to warrant locking it up in a warehouse to rot. I couldn't believe that I had found something retired by the previous tour guide in the museum. It made me feel less alone. I hadn't felt the flavor of deep-chested and rotten fear in over a decade, a time when I was unacquainted with what lurked around the museum's ornate corners. However, this evening I was again in unfamiliar and petrifying territory. Why was I not informed of this place? I would have decommissioned Johnny Razortong in a heartbeat.

2:32:32Not for me, then for Marietta's tortured soul. Without warning, the stuffed mechanical abomination switched on. It chilled my blood to see golden iridescent bulbs flickering in the place where its lifeless beady globes had been. Its jaw gnashed wildly, lagging and biting. It was stuck in the loop for a while. Seeing through eyes that hadn't seen the world in decades as it woke from its slumber, it turned to me. Gleaming gears and yellow eyes all feasting on who it broke its sleep. Me. The speaker tried to sing in a child's voice, but the rusty electronics could only cough up distorted noise. When it finally started the tune and began walking, I made for the door.

2:33:16Kelsey, yum. Kelsey, yum. Drink milk for bones. Put it in your tongue. My hand met the handle of the door. I went tumbling backward as the man kicked it in first, my elbow collapsing into one rotten floorboard. The mechanism behind me sang and sang and her cymbals crashed and crashed. Bones, bones, bones, strong teeth for bite. No moans, moans, moans, burn your teeth at night. The intruder's hand was immediately aiming for my throat once more, but I was faster. I turned quickly, catching one of his arms and pulling them behind his back in a lock. Twisting, I faced his kicking legs outward at Kelsey.

2:33:55A cymbal clapping animatronic monstrosity approached slowly, gears churning in its open chest. Crash, crash, crash went the cymbals. They crashed until the gears caught both his boots and its exposed core as he tried to kick her away. But he was locked in my arms, and he was locked tight. From then, it took a while for the man to stop screaming. His feet met the unyielding gears of animatronic innards in a red cloud of skin and bone. calcium calcium drink meat for bones put it in your tongue this this guy's literally getting michael afton right now he's literally getting the spring lock failure Michael Afton uh that's the guy who made FNAF right no no no but uh the guy that made it Scott coffin michael afton is the purple guy within the series who kills the kids and the way he dies is he crawls inside of one of the suits to hide from the kids ghost and that's not the first one right spring lock it's in the third one it happens all of the spring locks in the suit fail and like crush him to death inside of the suit that happened in the first movie though i remember watching yeah oh yeah yeah the first movie the first yeah but they i remember because we talked about fnaf on one of these episodes and then I ended up playing it the first one, but I didn't remember that in the first game.

2:35:17Yeah. The first game, I mean, all the games are just like the actual survival segments, unless you find the hidden puzzles and stuff in two and three. But the first one's just a survival segment after the kids have been murdered and possess the animatronics. And the third one, you see like flashbacks where it shows that they got there. Basically, Michael Afton killed a bunch of kids by luring them in with this mascot costume. and the mascot costume had a failure and all the joints in it like shot back into place and crushed him to death. That's kind of fun. So basically this guy getting sucked inside of a suit.

2:35:49He is getting Michael laughed. Have you ever done a he's getting Michael laughed. I love that as a verb. Have you ever done a FNAF video? Yeah, I have. It has like 14 million years. That's awesome. I did a lore thing of all the games and everyone's like yes I remember even that like I never played the games but I mean obviously you have to have heard of it it was so big so crazy popular and that video had like a huge resurgence when the first movie came out and everyone's like what are the kids into on the telly box you know so yeah sure that for sure what's that doing on the telly box Oh, a man being crushed in a spring block failure.

2:36:42Perfect. Perfect. Freddy Fazbear is actually the ghost of Cassie. Oh my God. What, what if the monkey is actually Sophie? Oh, that's fun. I mean, wouldn't you be like, I personally wouldn't go the FNAF angle. I mean, it's probably not, but it would be kind of funny if it was. At this point, I would be like, that's hilarious.

2:37:08I mean, we have a giant symbol monkey crunching a guy to death with gears. Hug daddy, Sophie.

2:37:18The living tombstone song starts playing. We're waiting every night. My God, your voice. What the fuck? That's what it sounds like. It's a song. It's like a mechanical nightcore thing. Be your home and home To finally Home and invite The once childlike voice Coming out of the same speaker Became choppy and deep pitched Like a singing birthday card With a dying battery At that moment I could only hope my daughter Wasn't looking down Watching me ghoulishly smile As my rich pursuer struggled And screamed in my locked arms Close your eyes if you're watching honey Daddy's gonna be free soon As daddy gets sucked inside Of the monkey animatronic Daddy's gonna be free

2:38:07Daddy's free Like Dobby Daddy's free Ping ping ping The big simple smack Of his head Ping The man screamed and screamed And the dying speaker's voice line sung and sung Calcium Calcium Metal gears were up to his calves His cartilage popped. His leg bones buckled and broke with a stomach-curdling crack as Kelsey snapped his femurs like thick white pencils through her gears as if the man was fleshy mulch. I only let go when he finally became limp. His screams were no longer. All that could be heard in the dusty room was the mechanical spinning and clunking of gears from the animated monstrosity to my side.

2:38:52For a while, I sat in the dark as it ate him whole. It felt good to finally fight back, But it was never meant to feel this good Sound of his bones crunching Sound of his voice extinguishing like a wet flame I was no longer going to be The one being tortured and tormented I was going to be free I just want to say I just want to say He's killed seven people now Yeah and I truly believe that last person Who was like hey Hold on I don't know if that person was Well I mean he was choking him out So Oh, true, true. Never mind. That's true. But five innocent people, right? There were five who died that night.

2:39:33At first, I thought it was the museum curator at first, but I guess not. Though, as the age-old saying goes, ignorance is bliss. I wish I hadn't looked down at the mutilated man. I wish I hadn't seen that he was not someone wealthy or a guest after all. Catching a proper glance at him in the dim moonlight shining over his overalls and glistening keys Became terrifyingly evident That he was museum security Okay so Alright so Bring that back up to six God damn it I knew it I knew I knew it Cause he probably yeah he was probably like hey you're breaking in Or something and then yeah of course Of course I killed a man that was just trying to do his job No I didn't I didn't the museum did Okay That real steel trap of a mine coming into play, building his own reality right now.

2:40:28Deep down, I think I knew I was responsible, though. Deep down, you held him down so the monkey could get him. Don't know how deep down we have to go. Pretty surface level there, Mikey. Pretty surface, I think you've killed him. I think, you know, don't need to be a fucking rocket scientist to figure that one out. Get this sentence, and that I might have enjoyed watching it happen. but no it was the museum that did it for sure i gotta tell you i gotta tell you i i'm falling out of favor with mikey very how do we oh damn i'm not gonna go there i'm not gonna go there but i did have the thought maybe mikey's like an attraction like he thinks he's a person you know but he's like a ghost that haunts the place or something i was caught that see whenever i said like oh is this a place where people are dropping their stuff off right and that he was one of the murderers or something and that like he has pretended to be a tour guide this whole time but then the whole can't I first that's what I was thinking when it's like oh he killed his daughter is what I was thinking I see but then it's but the cancer you know unless it's just like by the way she didn't have cancer I strangled her which would be pretty lame by cancer I meant I stabbed her to death yeah you know the worst kind of cancer or I should say the museum stabbed her I do I really like that the museum is taking the creature.

2:41:47It's taking its place. You see, I was going to save my daughter, but then the museum showed up. Yeah. I went to get a meatball out of the freezer. It was then I found the museum that makes the meatballs.

2:42:06It oddly works pretty good, too.

2:42:12But it was time to keep moving. I swiftly bent down and swooped a metallic lighter And a ring of many keys before leaving the Stuffed whore alone to eat Most of the keys were long and identical To mine from the look of things Snow was blowing outside the warehouse I had to squint freezing ice Peppered ice to see He's just Leaving the giant killer Animatronic for you To be fair What is he supposed to do? Let me go put that up real quick What is anyone supposed to do? like how'd they get it in that building in the first place i don't know they had the national guard airlifted to the house they should deploy it like freddy fazbear three fucking blackhawk helicopters imagine being al-qaeda in the mountains and you see a like helicopter flying in freddy fazbear They've got ropes hooked under his shoulders and he's coming over the mountains like Oh my god.

2:43:24I had to squint freezing ice peppered eyes to see and orient myself away from the museum's grounds. For a while I walked aimlessly in the blistering snow, not seeking a goal but salvation and as much distance I could make between the museum and myself. The weather was relentless, and I was ill-equipped from the get-go. At some point, I had a call with the museum's curator as I stumbled around the barren icy wilderness, but reality bordered with delusion. You could never leave the museum, Michael. The voice was buzzing through the speaker. You two are entwined. Wait, when did he take a call? Oh, has he never left the museum?

2:44:03because he's like at some point i had a call with the curator as i stumbled through the wilderness reality bordered with delusion yeah i think that we've been under the assumption that he has but i guess not which i think that only because at first i will say i was like oh he can never leave because uh how would you like how could you trust anybody you know yeah but but then he was like oh my uh his wife and he had a daughter and stuff so it's like okay well he has a family outside of this unless i'm guessing that the the daughter's death broke up the marriage so he's been there which this further this further kind of puts proof in the fact that he might legitimately be a a uh a piece in the museum he could be that might be where this is going my jaw was chattering i watched the steam from my mouth and lips escape me this money the type of money to let you run something like this your contract simply does not end if you leave our borders sunny you should know this.

2:45:00All I could hear for a while was the clinking of a lighter opening and the curator sucking through a cigarette over the phone. Occasionally, the wind blew a strong gust and pulled away my coat. I think it's time you expire, boyo. See, we even have a new guy lined up to replace you. It's over. I'm gonna be free. My voice was slow and hard to hear over chattering teeth. Curator scoffed. No, Michael. You're not. I want to thank you for letting those people that are lonely at the top of the financial mountain, those rich and famous who are under constant judgmental lies, those akin to exhibitions at the museum, let them truly be somewhere and be someone where they are not themselves.

2:45:41At our museum, they can be the audience, not the newspapers, nor the public exhibitions. And you were instrumental in such success. Breathing didn't come easy. The earth swirled and chilled my lungs like inhaling menthol. I'm going to be free. Words were labored for my lips. Farewell, Michael. Phone clicked off. I staggered for a while after the call had ended. Hypothermic brain fog had me go in in every which way. I had no chance of making it back to the museum in such delirium. Did I want to return, however? No, of course not. It was cold, and I was tired. I laid down in a pile of snow under a naked tree.

2:46:20The evening snowy breeze no longer felt like anything at all across my numb face. Just for a little while. I'll sleep in the cold for a little while. I tilted my head back, letting my eyelids drift shut and the stars above sing me a final lullaby. For a while, the constellations looked like my daughter's face, and I smiled. If I held a handful of snow tight enough, it didn't feel like I was dying alone. It felt like someone was holding my hand, and the fear started to blow away with the wind. I like. That's another good line. If I held the snow tight enough, it felt like I wasn't dying alone. That's a good line.

2:46:57but also I think I've told this story before did I tell you I had a buddy that almost died of hypothermia like that no what like while camping or what happened it was in January and it was a clear day out in Tennessee no no this like it was in a January month this would have been like five years ago I think he went out kayaking and then while he's out in the water like far from his truck a huge like snowstorm came in and the wind swept him off so he had to swim to shore and he was totally middle of like state park, no roadways or anything like that so he starts like walking through the woods and it was like below freezing and he was wet and cold and after walking for like half an hour he got really really tired and there was like a little depression in the ground that when he laid in it the wind wasn't hitting him and he's like I feel tired I think I'm just going to take a little nap And he starts to go to sleep and he's like, wait a minute.

2:47:56That's what the cold wants me to think. And he has this huge burst of adrenaline and starts sprinting to the woods and eventually finds a cabin and starts beating on the door. And it was an older woman inside who lived on her own. And she thought he was some crazy man trying to break in. So she called the cops and like, he's at the door, like, please let me in. And this woman's like, I'm calling the police. And he's like, that's good. That's fine. Just throw a blanket on the porch. just toss one outside you know what's crazy though do you if you're freezing to death i know if you have heat exhaustion it can like boil your brain and you kind of like you can be uh not like delusions i don't know if you can you can have delusions if you get okay so like brain melting hot enough yeah could uh does the same thing happen when you are freezing to death like does your mind going to a similar take is your brain beginning to slow down or working too fast it starts to go in overdrive and show you stuff so yeah you could definitely see delusions as your brain's effectively turning off well i'm glad your friend made it my god yeah he went me and him were out hiking and he showed me that spot later he's like right there is where i almost died yeah see that storm cloud coming let's camp out i'm so sleepy right now wake up But the snow in my hand was hairy And it was warm And it was breathing A cold pile beneath my arm Refted into the air with a snort As if from a whale's spout His brown fur looked unworldly Against the field of snow He couldn't see much with his two black Beady eyes beyond his whiskers But he knew it was me And I knew it was him That's cute I like how big he is, I did not think he was that big Yeah, he's like bear size I swiftly buried into the thin layer of concave snow that Ernie's pink and brown head came from.

2:49:45It was hard to see anything inside the hole, if at all, but it was a lot warmer than the surface. Inside, the lighter I had pulled from the security guard no longer faltered at any wind in the tight space, and I caught the tail end of the mole's pink hind paws in the lighter's soft glow as he began to scurry back through the tunnel towards the museum. I crouched a slog through the tunnel using only the lighter and Ernie to guide me. Warmth returned to my extremities and spread in waves. Come to think of it, the ladder was not the only thing I had found on the man's body. Upon the key ring I had taken was a peculiar long and winding key I had never seen before.

2:50:21One that I never owned. A key to the steel door. End of part four. I do like that he tried to make the escape on foot, because that's like what logic would dictate. But it's like, okay, if he does that, he's just going to freeze to death. So now he has to try the door. I feel like I'm high because he definitely I feel like he's never left the museum since then He certainly might not have I would believe it yeah Unless I was supposed to be like a dun dun dun Unless he had a cell phone That He hasn't mentioned before And that's what the call was through You know which maybe But no he said that the call was coming through the speakers Of the museum so it was like the museum Just that loud the speakers out front He can hear it in the woods Possibly.

2:51:06I don't know. Maybe. Anyway, part five, subtitle being, I finally opened the locked door. I was spitting out specks of dirt by the time I made it back to the museum through Irni's tunnel. An earthy taste coated my tongue and throat. Soil stuck to my grazed elbows. When I finally emerged in the evening light, came through the windows of the building. Irni's snubbed nose was sniffing and snorting as I pat him on his furry brown head. Pompous cackling beckoned me from the hallway, a type of egotistical rich laughter that came from throwing a heavy, inflated head back. Wiping muck away from the face of my watch, I saw it was already nine o 'clock.

2:51:43The deplorable guest had already been roaming the museum for three hours. I didn't want to ponder what unimaginable damage they'd done. I was about to leave through the doorway of the Animals in Evolution exhibit, fur the foyer, and make my way towards the sealed door. But when it suddenly began, my heart felt as if it had stopped. One after another, the display cabinets throughout the museum that had once held the imprisoned exhibitions exploded into clouds of broken shards. Shattering bangs echoed down the hallway, the floors above me, the greenhouse. It was a symphony of broken glass clattering throughout the entire building and bursting pops, a cacophony of impending frenzy.

2:52:20The air inside the museum was intense, scalding. Me, its tour guide, the eyes and ears of the place, was trying to leave it for good and the building exploding in a hot retaliating rage. The museum abhorred me for attempting an escape and the exhibitions were let free. From the halls, the once cackling guests soon found quietened confusion and silence swiftly grew screams as delirium blossomed into blind fear. Glass displays still distantly popped and met the marble like clattering hail. It occurred to me in that moment of shark terror that the museum itself was an exhibition in and of itself.

2:52:57A wealthy man's Pandora's box, and staring around at the violent exploding glass that housed her precious artifacts, her message was hauntingly clear. If she couldn't have me, no one else could. Two men frantically bolted into the room, running from an unseen horror. Their faces were polar opposite expressions. One spoke volumes of fear under a furrowed brow, the other had a jaw that was tightened with invisible bolts of disdain. Mr. Frightened and Mr. Angry, a rigid dichotomy which showed their contrasting feelings in the face of death. Here, in this abominable rich man's graveyard, they knew they were going to die.

2:53:35And to hear the museum narrow their death sentence with every pop of distant glass felt intensely euphoric. What's going on? Mr. Frightened's voice was a helpless drone. Where were you? I was... I held my breath. From their demeanor beginning to calm, it was evident that they felt relatively at ease in the seemingly dull animal wing of the museum. I would have felt the same if my eye didn't catch the finger-length chameleon crawling up Mr. Angry's wrist. The other man caught wind of what I was looking at. He looked down at Mr. Angry's forearm, and his bulging eyes looked like they could have fallen out of his head.

2:54:07Oh, God. The man with the chameleon up to his elbow said, I've read about these on the placard. How did it get? His voice was shaking. I wiped one sweaty hand on my leg and began to back away. This, all of this didn't concern me. I had to escape the museum. I had to find out what was behind the steel door. It's going to bite me, right? It's venomous, right, guide? Get it the hell off me! I interjected, stepping one foot back, then the next. No, do it. Without warning, the man peeled it from his skin, one thumb pushing against the chameleon's neck to expose fangs. Mr. Angry swiped the reptile at the other man with force and its mouth stuck to his skin like a dartboard, and he laughed.

2:54:49The rich and famous that visited were never going to change, I thought, watching Mr. Frightened squirm and hold the blood that slowly drizzled from the fleshy carved hole in his neck. The bitten man looked like a chameleon for a while. At least, part of him did. His wounded neck skin bloomed orange, violet. Scaly flesh beneath his jaw was iridescent in the moonlight. Human cells were never met for camouflage, and the man was soon testament to that. Mr. Fryden didn't make a sound, only an anguished grimace in pain as his skin cells flowered sage that ocean blew. The pain was clearly insufferable, enough to turn him mad, enough to want to spoon the bloodshot eyes out of their sockets.

2:55:30Though the worst stomach-curdling process was yet to come, there was never venom, though the chameleon's bite was turned into skin. When his human shell could bear the stress of chameleon evolution no longer, the blotches of scales that his flesh had morphed into soon became clear as glass. Transparent areas of the man's skin bloomed in circles, growing slowly and easily like puddles of rain. He went to grab a banister with one ghoulishly crystalline hand, but he couldn't have known that the chameleon's contagious, clear pigmentation would also make his flesh as thin as paper. Pointy finger bones tore through the tips of his fragile paper skin like spiny white staples as his hand touched the wood And he screamed and screamed Mr.

2:56:13Frightened fell to one knee, the only limb that still showed the true color of his flesh As he toppled over, I saw his liver, his heart, all organs and gore were on show As I stared through his back that looked like a mere translucent veil or a jellyfish So sick That's so cool That goes so hard. His skin gets so thin, his finger bones poke through him. That's fine. The chameleon's contagious pigment miraculously started to spread to his neck bones and his skull, and his skin and bones bloomed as clear as a window. No sound came out of his mouth when he screamed then, only that of the sickening tearing that came after his brittle see-through neck snapped under the weight of his brain.

2:56:54His head made a splash as it dived from his shoulders onto the marble floor. Watching his facial skin flake away to translucent dust I was reminded of the venomous glass butterflies we housed in our insect exhibition I wouldn't be surprised if this was how they originally came into being There was a brief, satisfying respite after I watched the rich man meet his demise When my hard and standing hairs upon two shaking arms settled I recalled how vulnerable he had looked with his organs showing How scared he must have felt in this moment before his head broke loose from his body his memories his hopes and fears his rich ego all ending in an instant as his fleshy mind bubble met marble how gratifying the other man tore me out of my moment of ecstasy as if he had plunged me in a freezing bath mr angry was wildly swinging a hammer in front of me and narrowly missed the bridge of my nose we're completely fucked because of you his voice lashed me with a searing culpability he swung again and missed because that time i was already on the move I bolted for the door, my feet skidding as I turned in the hallway towards the foyer.

2:58:02Angry guests, exploding cabinets. It's all too much, Sophia. I thought, I know you're watching me, honey. I'm going to be free. I reluctantly passed the steel door as I swiftly climbed the grand staircase of the foyer. I was going to open it this evening to find freedom just as Johnny had told me I would, but not until I could shake the angry, wealthy prick on my tail. So he's just running to try to get this guy away from him before he opens the steel door. Yeah well I think that he's now fighting for his life Before he like leaves Because I think that if he goes in there with him I don't know Yeah I think he's just trying to shake him Yeah The floor inside the Arts and Music exhibition Was littered with the shattered glass of the displays of free exhibitions And when I entered the room I immediately went straight for the back wall Above me on a golden placard A tooth fairy Mr.

2:58:53Angry followed me into the dimly lit space Wielding his hammer tightly over one shoulder Nowhere to run, guide. The man turned left, then right. No reanimated freaks left here to do your bidding either, eh? As I scanned the floor for smashed glass, the remains of any escape displays. But the tooth fairy didn't do my bidding, and it didn't need broken glass to be set free. Only the deep, nauseating hunger that rubbled within its canvas belly for the guest's mouth bones was needed for it to wait from its die. An ash colored hand tore out from the painting beside me Slowly reaching Wanting Strings of oil pigment like bloody tree sap or syrup Hung from its arms and neck As it hoisted itself out of the canvas Its face had no eyes Its head was only half of that Only the jaw, mouth and cheeks Remained below its jagged outline of a missing scalp Fucking Tooth Fairy Tooth Fairy payoff is sick That's so cool The dripping ink as it's stepping out of the painting That's so fun I like that follow too because they kind of get that with the sand in the second part.

2:59:54Like you get just, it's a fun, yeah, I like that. The man turned, but the Toothberry's fingers were long and its famine even longer. It leaped from the canvas, pinning him tightly against the ground. His hand was limp and the hammer slipping from his grip. My heart was racing, skin goose flesh, but watching the animated painting pull the man's teeth while intoxicating. There was a vile amusement that burned within me. As I counted the number of teeth the ghoul had to enroute before the man's words became a wet, indiscernible mess. Six, seven. When there were no teeth left, it started at his lips.

3:00:30Pink leeches that peeled away from syrup strings and nerves. Help me, please. I smiled because the tortured tour guide that I once was proved to be no salvation for him. Perhaps only dentures were. So I picked up his hammer and left him there to expire. The museum foyer outside was as it always was, ornate and grand. I looked up at the mosaic ceiling and laughed as I walked down the stairs of her belly. Excuse me. An orchestra of exploding glass displays. It is funny. I just like that. Sorry. It's just good timing. An orchestra of exploding glass displays and screams drowning the sound of my chuckle like a loud, swirling drain of disarray.

3:01:15The horrifying museum for the rich and famous was absurd And it ate me whole I like he's like I'm gonna get it out of here Sophie And then he's watching two guys die And he has to stop the chuckles as he runs With a hammer through the hole I'm telling you he's a fucking He's a psychopath Even if the guy was like gonna kill you I would still just be like okay cool I'm not gonna wait around I'm just gonna leave bye Yeah yeah that was my time I had the key to the steel door And with it my misery would come to an end I feel like you're smiling too Sophia Dad's leaving. The hallway wasn't very far.

3:01:48Steel door wasn't far. How much longer, Sophia? You're going to be so proud of me. My stomach sank. I didn't anticipate the museum's curator to be situated outside the metal door. Two stumpy legs beneath him that looked as if they hardly held up his grape-like frame, which busted at the seams. Michael? He said sternly, his back almost flat against the cold metal barrier behind him. Please don't do this. The head of the metal hammer in my hand shined brightly at the right angle. I walked towards the curator in the door. Oh, boyo. You've gone mad. That grin. The museum has gripped you, hasn't it?

3:02:26My fingers reached up and patted my lips like they were going numb. Oh, God. How long have I been smiling for? How long? If you turn and leave, we won't come after you. You have a choice. Come on, Mike. I contemplated for a while. The cold from the snow outside came through the broken foyer windows and chilled my bones, and I watched the steam of my breath rise from my lips. Tyre, be free. Look what years you have left, or enter the door, and you will never leave. It'll break you, Boyo. It'll break her. He was holding his hands up submissively. Please, Michael. Do you want to leave? I wanted to reply.

3:03:06I wanted to say yes. But the museum held my tongue, my arm, and the hammer swung and swung. Each blow was half my gold, half museum, but all of it, every cracking of his skull, every slosh of the curator's brain under my hammer was the bite of 15 years of torment. It was surprisingly easy to turn his skull into broken shards of bone and a gurgling fountain. Blood ran freely onto the ornate white floor like long, branching worms. In the poorly lit grayscale blanket of the evening, the curator's life fluid stood out vividly as a red pool against surrounding dull wash colors. My breath was labored through smiling teeth that were speckled with red paint.

3:03:49He's dead. He's really dead. It took a while for me to catch my breath, but when I finally did, I fumbled around for the key in my pocket and found that it slid into the steel door with ease. surprising ease as if the door had been opened regularly oh boy it can't have been i was here once a week and it was always locked tight the steel door groaned open circular lights adorned the short metal hallways in rows leading to a second wooden door a few steps away above the door a golden placard it read the next my stomach plummeted in bold letters the next guide that's fun. That's fun. I like that.

3:04:33I reluctantly brought myself towards the second door and pulled. If I had been wearing a smile again, it was soon gone. Pink wallpaper plastered the walls inside the space and peeled off occasionally in curled rips, save for one wall that was well kept, most likely because it was decorated with Polaroid photos. The shelves were littered with teddy bears, ground with clothes, the ceiling with fairy lights. I moved to the wall with the images and braced it with one hand as I peered closer. As I picked up one of my pictures, I caught the scent of iron from the dry blood on my hands. It was dated three years ago.

3:05:10Center frame was the curator, slimmer back then, alongside a blonde teenager in a tidy ponytail. They were smiling. Another Polaroid unstuck itself from the wall as I pulled. Upon the white bar beneath the picture, there was some writing that was messily scribbled and vivid, Flytrap's birthday. They did a couple years prior. It's picked at the curator and the girl, younger this time, beside our giant Venus flytrap we kept in the greenhouse. This photo had been taken at the museum while I was working. Is it Rosie? No, I think it's his daughter. It's got to be related to his daughter. Why would he not know her?

3:05:49Maybe she's older. He thought that she was dead, maybe. I think his brain... He is an unreliable narrator at some point in this, I think. Yeah. Reaching all the way to the end of the wall, I picked up the earliest photograph. Stated 15 years ago, the curator was sitting next to a hospital bed. The slimmest I had seen him, with a full head of hair. Beneath the Polaroid, more writing. Cancer-free. Right of the picture on the bed beside the curator was the same young girl, maybe five or six years of age. She had bright blue eyes and... Sophia. The pink room was spinning. I felt like throwing up. This can't be happening.

3:06:30It wasn't happening. The curator was right. I was going mad. I'm going mad. I'm just going. Dad? Her words were quiet, distant, and afraid. Her voice broke me in two. I turned. Those same eyes, that same smile. My sweetheart was older. She was in her early 20s. After all, it had been 15 years since I last heard her voice. Sophia. Words tremble from my lips. For a while, I cried as she hugged me. I thought about how the curator doctored the hospital's notice of death that I'd received so many years ago. I thought about how Sophia had been beneath my feet the entire time, caged like an animal and enslaved as a future pawn for the rich and famous.

3:07:10But after some time, I only thought about her smile. When she pulled away from me, her eyes caught the bits of the curator's skull upon my maroon waistcoat. We still caught up. We had a lot to talk about. But after she had seen what was on my coat, her smile faded and the sparkles in her eye was long gone. Still bawling, she said upon her bed, Where have you been? I hear at the museum, honey. Once a week. These are days I spend off-site, never far. They don't let me visit the museum on off days. They have lots of cleaning to do. She was choking up as she spoke. Her words took a while to come loose from her lips.

3:07:48No, they don't. Dad, the curator shows and teaches me about the museum on those other six days. She pointed a shaggy finger to the Polaroid pictures on her wall. He says I'm going to be a superstar tour guide, loving every moment of working here just like you. Thought back to the golden placard on the wall. The next guide felt like my heart was going to give out. This world was cursed. It was cruel. Honey, it doesn't matter what he said. He's a terrible, terrible man. He's been raising you to beat. I shut my eyes tightly, inhaling a deep breath. I didn't want to tell her who he was. I didn't want to tell her that her life was a lie and her caregiver was a monster.

3:08:24He's grooming you, darling. Like a cattle for slaughter. You're going to be a pawn for the rich and famous just like me. She was shaking her head. No, that's not true. It's not. She bolted up from her bed and made for the door. The curator's my friend. He wouldn't do that. I was shouting. He's as bad as the rest, honey. Listen to me. They're all monsters. All of them. All the rich and famous that visit this godforsaken horror house! There's no way she ever saw the rich people. She was hidden away through the door of the nights I had given them tours. She didn't know where to begin when unraveling my incoherent rambling.

3:09:00And at that moment, she was just a sobbing mess. I went to hold her arm to settle her down, but she screamed, Get away from me! I felt helpless. Listen to me, please. The rich are deplorable, and they're here once a week. You just don't see them because you're locked. She sprinted through the door. Sophia, don't! Her slippers splashed as it met the maroon puddle of blood that pulled outside the doorway. She screamed and screamed not only because she was beside the curator's face that had been mashed to a bloody pulp of broken bones and flesh by my hammer, but she might have screamed because at that moment, she knew her father was a...

3:09:34Monster! Words fell out of Sophia's trembling lips. You're... You're a... You're a monster, Daddy. I went to grab her by the arm and hold her and tell her it was alright and that we were free, but she slapped my hand away and shrieked. My voice was quiet, pleading. I'm not a monster, honey. She was backing away from me. Pale moonlight flooded in and painted bloody steps upon the museum's marble floors where his slippers had been. Looking down at the ground, she didn't see the disgusting man lying there that had tormented me for 15 years, nor the man that had kidnapped and groomed her to be the next guide.

3:10:09All she saw in the museum's curator's lifeless body was the remains of the honest man that had raised her in her father's stead. And I had just haphazardly scattered his brain across the marble floor with a hammer. She broke off into a sprint down the hallway, around the corner and down the steps she had walked many times before. I screamed after her and gave chase. When I finally saw her again, she had stopped in the middle of the foyer a few steps from the door. Beelzebub and the Tooth Fairy were patrolling the halls, slowly making their way towards us. The museum's abominations did not wander aimlessly.

3:10:42They were searching for me. The museum was searching for me. It's not going to let me run free. The back of her blonde hair was facing me as she wrestled with the door locks. Sophia shrieked as I made my way past her and jammed my master key into the door and twisted. My heart was racing. The key that had worked for 15 years was not turning the lock. I kept twisting and turning my wrist. Cussing of the museum's exhibitions loomed. It would never open. Of course, not this evening. because something was amiss. The museum had no guide. Inside the foyer, Beelzebub fluttered a broken fly wing as it sucked his disgusting mouth tube in and out like a pacifier.

3:11:23When they would reach us, they would pull my teeth and flesh from my bones as easily as boiled meat. Sophia would be next. No, no, she was going to be free. The ground scratched as Beelzebub dragged one contorted spiny foot across the marble, closer closer that's when I knew what I had to do my arms were wide I will be resuming tours at 10 o 'clock please leave your coats on the rack in the foyer I said my voice echoing through the museum the sound of scraping and glass displays smashing was no more is that what you want to hear I screamed at the museum the two horrifying exhibitions inside the foyer stood frozen is that what you want to trailed off, falling to my knees tears streamed down my cheeks and onto the ornate floor The museum would have been satisfied with either me or Sophia as the guide, but it was always meant to be me.

3:12:13Always. A clack chimed from the door behind me, and Sophia and I both turned. Snow drifted slowly to the ground through the large doorway to the outside gardens. I managed to make out the gloss of the curator's black sedan underneath piling snow parked near the steps outside. Do you see? Took Sophia's hand and held her cold grip tightly to mine. This museum is cursed. The people that visit are cursed. Reaching forward, braced for pale cheek with my other hand before she could squirm away. Look at what I've become. Look at me. Staring into her, I saw my sweetheart, my world, my everything. Sophia was here.

3:12:50She was real. She was alive. Look at me, darling. Tears streamed down my face and met my shirt collar in blotches. I may not be your father. Not you, not anymore. Brushed her hair from her brow. But I want you to know that I love you, Sophia. Her wet eyes met mine. I knew she hadn't seen her dad. She saw the museum. I'm glad she did, because if she hadn't, she might have stayed. I will always love you, my girl. I like to remember her smiling in that moment, but it may have been a trick of the mind. I let go of her hand, leaving the curator's car keys in her shaking palm. You get in that car and you go.

3:13:28Sniffled and nodded. You go and don't stop until you're safe, honey. Johnny was right about finding freedom through the door, though it was never mine. The museum had possessed me, just as it had Mariette, and I could never leave. But Sophia could. Goodbye, Dad. For the first time in years, my smile was warm and genuine. False memories of her future flashed through my eyes as I watched her breathe the cold air on the outside steps. I saw Sophia's first day at her real job. A smile on her face at her wedding, her children start in school. My eyes followed her as she disappeared into the snowy evening in the curator's car.

3:14:06When I faced the museum, the exhibitions had wandered on, and the building was silent. I put on a ballroom waltzing record before I began sweeping the glass off the museum's cold floors. The exhibitions were free, of course, but it was no secret as to how I survived 15 years of trauma. The museum had protected me from its exhibitions, because I was her guide. As I made my way around the ground floor of the building, I noticed one glass display that had not broken in the chaotic evening. It was when I had passed the paranormal wing that I saw her. Her hand braced the window of her prison, and her fingers slid down with a screech.

3:14:45Come on then, Marriott. I said as my key fit snugly inside the glass cabinet. The music from the record player was a divine tune of strings and soul, a song to dance to. I felt a spring in my step as the old tour guide and I made our way to the main hall of the museum. The beautiful evening stars above the mosaic glass ceiling painted the marble foyer of beautiful azure. My grip made its way through Mariette's cold, plastic fingers until we were holding hands under the night sky above. Her face was that of a shiny doll, but it didn't matter. She still had the soul of the young woman that once walked these halls.

3:15:23She was stunning. This evening was her time to feel young and alive again. Bleeding, I held her hand and together Mariette and I slow danced in the moonlight. Mariette, my daughter is free. Sophia is free. She's out there somewhere, starting a new life. The moon, the museum's marble in my heart, the color of cold lips. The old guide and I waltzed left and right. Isn't that lovely, Mariette? I twirled under the stars. Mariette. And there we go. That's the end of the series. Wow. What a fun ending. You know, uh, it was weird. The story started off, you could kind of, I mean, at least for me, I feel like I could tell that the guides, like, none of that stuff was planned or anything.

3:16:08Or maybe it was, but, I mean, it read like it wasn't planned. I feel like, um, I don't know. I feel a lot of things. I mean, like, the visuals and the descriptions of the, you know, some of these fucking gross outs were awesome. Like, I love the jellyfish part was probably my favorite in terms of the visuals and stuff. I wrote a note earlier and I'm curious what you think. I wrote this. I put, what if it was a museum that takes your pain and grief away from you to be on display for others amusement? And like maybe, and maybe that transaction means that you will permanently lose that memory or it'll be taken from you.

3:16:44Something that might connect more first. Well, actually let me ask you this. Do you, do you like the idea of Sophia being alive there? or do you feel like that was kind of like a cop-out? No, but I almost don't believe it. You know? Neither do I. That's what I'm wondering is, is the museum showing you something that will make you stay? That's what I think. I think that basement was like almost a tulpa of sorts. Like it's the thing in your mind the museum creates to entrap you there, right? And it knew for him that would be, and I think the curator was lying about it and the pictures were fake and all that.

3:17:18and it goes back to what the whole razor tongue thing was that he'll tell you a lie or a truth so his whole lie about like your freedom lies beyond the door down there like it's freedom of the soul because he's not thinking about his daughter but it's the thing that will keep him stuck in the museum well the freedom is the lie for sure the freedom is that oh actually my daughter's totally fine and she's alive I mean I agree it feels a bit too convenient in a way where and then that little bit at the end too where he's dancing with Mariette, whatever, it's like, oh, she's not even here with us.

3:17:53Like he's like kind of, he's stuck alone again, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's why I kind of get by that Mariette, the question mark at the very end. Like a lot of that was just happening in his head and the museum, if the museum is a living thing, is established at the end, the depiction of Sophia was just the thing to make him, you know, stay there. and it goes back to Razortongue because he's like, oh, where's your daughter? Rotting in the ground. At first, that's assumed to be like a painful truth to just pick at him but in hindsight, that would actually be a lie. It's the lie that he or sorry, no.

3:18:29That would be a painful truth, right? Because it's the thing to pick at him but it is the truth because his real daughter is dead out there somewhere. This is just the museum giving him something to make sure he sticks around. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I'd be really curious to see the story if it was more concise from the beginning, because I feel like by part three, I about halfway through part three, about halfway through the story. That's where it really felt like it was kind of finding its groove. It'd be fun to see these things kind of set up a little more at the beginning, because, yeah, you know, we get some fun stuff in the first two.

3:19:05And you get the Rosie and you get to kind of like see through Rosie that like, oh, I had a daughter, too. That's why he's like befriending this girl and treating her like almost like a play date that he wishes he had with his daughter at a museum. But it'd be fun to see this as a more concise story from the beginning versus something that was evolving into a fully developed story. That's like one thing with some of these, some of these vignette kind of like multi-part episode series is it'd be cool to see something in one long post or like one book even of something that's like maybe a little more fully curated from the top would be fun.

3:19:44I thought that the ending though was really was fun. I think that's a lot of fun It's the thing in the museum that makes him stay because it gives him this false confidence that his daughter's out there so where his false memories he wanted from earlier they can be real in his mind and he'll stay right there Really interesting I will add this is five years ago and it doesn't look like he's updated it since but he started writing a prequel series from Mariette's perspective Oh that'd be fun so he has one part up right now called where the mantis flies which we'll link that in the description so if you want to see more of the prequel stuff from mariette then that'll be in the description the idea of i don't know if you found this or if you thought this as well but the idea of her putting plastic made me think that she was like maybe like didn't want to grow old or was uh was concerned about her looks or something like wanting to preserve beauty of some kind was kind of what i was thinking with the whole plastic uh like preservation or whatever doll like mentality that she turns into she's huge though i mean seven feet over seven feet tall is what they said so i don't know so but i don't know i mean all in all it was really fun it was a nice story that was a fun that was a fun long story that did not overstay its welcome and it also didn't just like use the fun to degrade the quality of the story it was just fun throughout and i enjoyed it that was a good one no i think so too i think also it was a story too that starts pretty campy and then by by about part four I think it completely abandons that or not abandons it but like I mean it kind of it takes I like that it starts off campy because it's like this is a weird job I have until he's like actually I want to get the fuck out of here and then the story almost twists with how the tour guide himself is experiencing like it basically his perception of the museum changes therefore I feel like the horror got a little more serious yeah I enjoyed it that was a lot of fun pretty fun well guys that's our episode this week we thank you so much for listening like I said or like Isaiah said we got links in the description for the author so please go follow them go give you know just go show them some love go show them support also maybe check out the prequel series it sounds like a lot of fun to all the people listening right now on audio platforms please consider giving us a nice thumbs up or a good rating it helps us out a lot and if you're wanting some extra content on the side go to patreon.com slash creepcast we got an imperial invective uh interview a nice author interview that we're stoked on and we do some bonus episodes here and there so if you want some free content feel free to head over there until next time guys stay creeped stay creeped and remember if the uh living museum full of monstrosities against nature you work in um says from a puppet that is established to be a mind demon that ruins reality if it says that your daughter that you assume is dead is actually alive in the basement for 15 years probably don't trust it probably just good rule of thumb but hey real bear trap of a mind you're working with there buddy um bye

3:23:07Thank you.

3:23:40You