MAG 79: Hide and Seek

Original recording of manifestations and sightings at The Magnus Institute, London, 16th February 2017.
==Recording==
Note: Michael uses both he/him and it/its pronouns.
Tim and Martin disregard John's request to take a few days off from work and opt to investigate. They take Martin's tape recorder to get recorded evidence in case something goes wrong. While Tim insists he took a blank tape, he accidentally records over one of Martin's poems, Streets. Tim and Martin find John's office empty and worry that he is going to badly hurt himself or someone else.
While Martin is concerned Tim's motive is to get John fired, Tim explains that his concerns are related to the supernatural as there is something in the Institute controlling their actions, including Tim's inability to quit and John's inability to fire him. They open a door and are confronted by Not-Sasha in her true form, the NotThem. Martin notices it looks like Not-Sasha but Tim refuses to entertain the notion. Martin decides to follow the creature into the tunnels and Tim reluctantly joins him.
The recording switches over to John, furious with himself. He explains he took Michael's door rather than face Not-Sasha. The door opened into the tunnels and he does not know where he is, so he resolves to wait. He does not believe the Not-Them will give up but will not risk attracting its attention, and notes it may already be down there with him. John berates himself for destroying the web table, realising too late that the NotThem was bound by the table rather than connected to it. He worries over the amount of tape he has left and decides to stop recording in order to conserve it. As he does, he hears Not-Sasha calling his name.  
The recording switches back to Martin and Tim. Tim is worried he heard something, and the two realise that they will not find John by themselves. Tim suggests they get Elias from his office but refuses to leave Martin alone in the tunnels. They start to argue about Tim's recent behavior and Martin's reasons for staying at The Magnus Institute when they are interrupted by Michael. He explains that it is waiting to see if John will die, and it finds amusement in the idea. He idly threatens to kill Tim and Martin to keep them from aiding John, then manifests a door as he distorts his hands to be sharp and pointed. The two archival assistants flee into Michael's door and find themselves in a strange, distorted corridor.
The recording switches back to John, who is in a panic. He has fled deeper into the tunnels and has now armed himself with a metal pipe, something that brings him comfort despite its uselessness. He has realized Sasha James has been erased and hopes this tape will provide evidence of his voice in case the same happens to him. As Not-Sasha calls to John, her words distort into the NotThem's true voice. She taunts him by saying she will take his body the way he took Sasha's and that no one will never know. She goes on to say that the process will hurt, just as it hurt for Sasha, and John yells at her to shut up, revealing his hiding spot and prompting him to flee.  
The recording switches back to Tim and Martin. With distorted voices, they express confusion and fear over their surroundings and toward Michael. Martin remarks that the tape recorder seems to be malfunctioning as they continue to try navigating the corridors.
The recording switches back to John, where Not-Sasha's voice is no longer distorted. She describes her existence in a mocking production of a statement, where she briefly recounts the history of the NotThem. She describes how she would take identities and feed off the fear of the few people who realised until being bound to the web table by Adelard Dekker, at which point she had her friends take the table from one place to another so that she could continue inspiring this fear. Eventually the NotThem was taken to The Magnus Institute with the intention of stealing secrets, but she was unable to cause fear until John destroyed the table after assembling the clues she had left for him.
Not-Sasha mocks John for being so unaware and says he is a shadow of his predecessor, Gertrude Robinson. Her voice continues to distort as she states even she would make for a better Archivist than him and begins to wonder if such a thing would be possible, but remarks that John would miss The Unknowing. As she speaks, John quietly and incessantly apologizes to Tim, Martin, and Sasha for what he has done. Not-Sasha eventually concludes that taking John's body is unlikely to "rob The Eye of its pupil", and that she will simply kill him as originally planned. 
There is a sound of stone and brick suddenly shifting, and Not-Sasha screams before disappearing. John is approached by the strange man who has saved him. The unidentified man says it is time he and John had a talk.
== Continuity ==
*The friends that Not-Sasha mention in her statement are likely Breekon and Hope, as they frequently delivered the web table from one place to another.
* Related Entity: The Stranger and The Spiral
Category:Leitner
Category:The Magnus Archives Episodes