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Statement of Fishlegs Nonam, regarding his recent absence. Statement recorded direct from subject on *******.

[BRIEF PAUSE, SILENCE GETTING SLOWLY AWKWARD THROUGHOUT]

Um-

Oh, do I just go?

Yes, when you're ready.

I'd just assumed you would have something more to say? That sounded a little dry, though what would I know. I'd never really talked to anyone about these things.

Where do I even start?

I suppose...

We used to have a greenhouse in our garden when I was a kid.

It was empty most of the time, it came with the house and my mother never had time to grow things that would Need a greenhouse. We planted flowers in the rest of the garden though, sometimes.

It was always cold in that greenhouse, cold enough I could see my breath while there, even in summer. I didn't know when I was a kid, didn't think to ask, but they're not supposed to be cold are they? Their whole idea is that they keep the plants in them warm in winter, isn't it?

That is mostly besides the point. I never minded the cold, it was soothing, even. I would spend time there when people made me too jittery, when the noise got too much. Like a break from the outside world, a timeout.

Just, doing a whole lot of nothing, or reading. Writing in later years.

It always seemed to me that time passed differently. Like how much time I was there didn't really correlate to how long it'd been outside.

I would spend what felt like hours in there and check the clock in the house and only 30 minutes will have passed, I would get through a whole book and discover that the function I was trying to get away from was still going on.

Or, on the other hand I would go in for a minute, just start to relax, and find out it's basically night outside and mom's worried I fell asleep there.

It was always enough for the noise in my head to subside, to calm down enough to be able to socialize again. Or just long enough to take a breath, calm down. Whatever it was that i needed alone time for.

I didn't think it was That weird. Odd, sure, but nothing really worth even really telling anyone about? Hiccup would just say I had terrible sense of time, and back then I though he was right.

Would this be Hiccup Haddock?

Who else? I know he's given you a statement, he's actually the one who suggested I come here.

I assume to clear up the things he'd told you.

He did?

[IGNORING HIM]

Anyway.

I haven't lived in that house full time for a while. I mostly moved out when we started University. Mom checks in with me every weekend, and I visit, but on the whole. I have my own apartment, thought I don't stay there often and-

Actually, I don't know if I even own it anymore. It's been a couple of a couple of weeks since I visited and. Well…

You were pronounced dead four months ago.

That. Yes.

I mean, that's what I'm here to clarify, isn't it?

I promise my musings about the greenhouse have a point.

I missed it. Through living by myself and having sleepovers with my friends often enough to wonder if we don't just live on each other's couches, I didn't need the alone time in my cold quiet place so much, but sometimes. When the publisher complained, or when I had to commute through too crowded a place, or I took too many phone calls, I did miss it.

Not really enough to go back there. I think that'd've been weird, showing up at my mother's suddenly to go into her empty unused greenhouse.

So yeah, I sort of wanted to be there again but things were content enough to just not bother. Things were fine.

Till half a year ago.

Hiccup went away on a business trip, Cami was out of town already, we don't really ask her what she does for work anymore, but I'm pretty sure it was a work trip? Point is I was alone for days for the first time in a while, and it was.

It was fine. Hiccup always worries, and I get it, he. May have had a point? At least this time. Considering everything. But he worried, and at the time I though he was… I dunno, making a fuss about nothing?

But for a few days it was Fine. Nothing happened, I typed away at the thing I had to finish, went on walks, did fuck-all interesting. It was perfectly boring and tranquil for three days.

Then the fourth day came, and it was no longer boring.

Well.

I say that like for me it wasn't a one time event, which is what it basically was, it only lasted longer than that for everyone else.

I was going to a coffee shop that I like, to see if I would get more of a productive groove up there and then something terrible was coming at me in the back alley.

I would love to describe it to you in a way a competent writer would, but.

You know, to be honest, I barely saw the thing.

It was a lanky critter, I think, big and grey, but blurred at the edges almost, hard to make out. Not to mention it was moving very fast and very aggressively in my general direction.

I 'unno what my thought process was. But in the moment I wasn't so much scared as I was. Kind of annoyed?

Don't get me wrong, I knew for a fact I would die if it reached me, and, generally speaking, I fear death, but I just thought how it would be such a hassle to get out and get back.

Get out and back… where?

The greenhouse.

[HE CHUCKLES DRYLY]

Told you it would be relevant.

I think that was an instinctual thing? It's a safe space, my little personal cold 'n quiet spot, I just. Wanted to go there to get out of a stressful situation.

I might not have been scared, but I'm not an idiot, so. Stress.

So. The thing never reached me. I went to the greenhouse.

I don't think it was the actual one, it was just close enough to the real deal that it didn't matter. It was just as cold, and quiet and. Nice.

I think I just laid down and let the cold and the fog envelop me like a blanket. I think that's also what ended up, um.

Sort of screwing me over?

[HIS VOICE GOES QUIETER AS HE GOES ON]

I lost track of time.

I meant to come back right away, just when the danger had passed, but, uh.

[ALMOST IN A WHISPER]

Might've come back just last week.

[EMBARRASSED SILENCE]

…How long did it feel to you?

I don't know? Anywhere from a few hours to like a week? The fog made it really hard to think clearly, in a 'just woke up from a nap and can't read' sort of way.

I wrote a bit. I think. I brought this thick stack of a manuscript back, so maybe I have a whole new novel on my hands for all the trouble. I barely remember writing any of it.

I've been a bit too busy to actually check?

How did you actually come back, I was under the impression that it was impossible to leave the fog like this, especially after months?

Same way I came in? Through the front door.

But-

It doesn't matter. Nothing I can tell you will make more sense.

I went through the door, and I was at home.

Except not my own home but a house I didn't actually recognize? That my friend was apparently living in now, after being arrested for my murder.

And it's been half a year since I disappeared.

So that's been something.

[ANOTHER PROLONGED SILENCE]

…Statement ends.

I was told something impersonated me, and that something has been pronounced dead in my place?

From your friend's statement and what police have released as public info, that seems to be the case, yes.

That's just perfect.

Have you had contact with anyone else you knew yet?

We haven't figured out how approach mom and I've only texted with Camicazi so far. She's been out of the house for a while, apparently.

So I've heard, have you seen any photos of yourself? Heard a recording of your voice on digital media?

No? Why?

The thing that took your place in the wake of your disappearance, it. It doesn't look anything like it's victim, save for age and gender.

What?

Memories of everyone save for one person and all digital and some analogue media gets changed to what this new person looks like. That's why no one was able to tell but your friend.

Just the one person?

[BEAT OF SILENCE]

So Cami didn't even notice…

No wonder he told me he almost lost his mind.

So both Ms Boggs and Mr Haddock are in hiding?

[VAGUELY AFFRONTED, STATIC RISES]

What are you, a cop?

No, it's-

[STATIC OVERLAPS HIS WORDS LIKE FOG ROLLING IN]

I think we're done here.

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Subject refuses any further questioning and has, rather rudely, seem to have disappeared without using the front door.

Here's hoping the mist hasn't damaged any of the papers.

[SIGH]

Just as with Mr Haddock's statement, follow up is basically impossible, as all the same people have remained missing or, likely, unwilling to cooperate.

Or, officially missing, I should say, since it seems two of the parties disappeared on purpose rather than by accident.

One has to wonder if the fire at the police station was in any part accidental.

The interaction of. What I can only describe as a nascent avatar of the lonely and the Not-Them is interesting, as the. The killing of the victim seems to have been skipped this one time.

Would it interact the same with someone aligned with, say, The Vast? Someone capable of relocating in a moment's notice? Would it perhaps have trouble killing a sufficiently aligned person to begin with, as it failed to kill Haddock?

…

I just can't help but wonder, even still.

End recording

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