The Magnus Institute’s archives felt heavier than usual as Jon sat down, adjusting the recorder with practiced precision. The dim light flickered overhead, casting shifting shadows across the room’s cluttered shelves. He pressed record.
"Statement of Amy Patel, regarding the alleged disappearance of her acquaintance Graham Folger. Original statement given July 1st, 2007. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins."
Amy Patel had taken a Criminology course at Birkbeck University. She was an associate compliance analyst at Deloitte—stable, practical, and decidedly skeptical. She’d met Graham Folger during her studies, and while they weren’t particularly close, they shared enough interactions to leave her unsettled when he vanished.
Graham had always been peculiar. Older than most of the students, prematurely graying at the temples, he scribbled furiously in notebooks even when lecturers were silent. Once, Amy borrowed his notes only to find them blank—a detail that unnerved her but which she brushed off at the time.
Their connection deepened one night after class when Amy ran into him on the night bus to Clapham. She observed his nervousness—how he wiped condensation from the windows obsessively and scanned the streets below. As she approached, he jumped, startled but relieved to see her
Graham’s flat was sparse but clean, dominated by rows of shelves packed with identical notebooks. A large wooden table sat near the window, its surface carved with intricate spiraling patterns that seemed to shift under Amy’s gaze. She asked about it, and Graham admitted it was an antique, restored but incomplete. He couldn’t find the missing centerpiece.
She didn’t stay long—her head ached, and the patterns left her feeling disoriented. Yet as she left, she couldn’t shake the impression of being watched.
A week later , curiosity drove Amy to look out her own window. Graham’s flat was directly across the street, and she soon found herself observing him. What began as idle people-watching turned into a nightly ritual.
She saw him reorder notebooks without pattern, scribble frantically on already-full pages, and even, on one occasion, tear pages out to eat them. Graham’s paranoia escalated. He flinched at every sound and stared out the window as though expecting something—or someone.
Then, one night, Amy saw something impossible.
It began as a shadow—long, thin, and clinging to the side of Graham’s building. At first, she mistook it for a pipe, but it moved, bending at unnatural angles as it slithered toward his open window. It wasn’t human. Multiple limbs, jointed where they shouldn’t be, folded into the room in seconds, and the light snapped off.
Frozen, Amy watched the silhouette shift inside Graham’s flat, barely visible through gaps in the curtain. She called the police, reporting an intruder, but by the time they arrived, the lights were back on, and Graham—or someone who looked like him—answered the door.
It wasn’t him.
This "Not-Graham" was shorter, with blond curls instead of graying hair. But he wore Graham’s clothes, stood in Graham’s flat, and offered the police his ID—a passport with Graham’s name and face. The officers left, reassured.
Amy wasn’t.
Over the next week, Amy saw the imposter throw out bag after bag of notebooks, clearing the shelves completely. At night, the curtains remained open, but instead of ignoring her window, "Not-Graham" stared directly at her.