The Magnus Archives - MAG 186 - Quiet

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hi everyone, I'm Mike, voice of Tim Stoker from the Magnus Archives and head of video for Rusty Quill. And I'm here today to tell you about the new audio drama podcast from the creators of SCP Archives, Late Clarity, and The Fall of the House of Sunshine, called Margaret's Garden. Margaret's Garden is a new, thrilling story set in a world as magical as it is mysterious. Seventy years ago, every man, woman, and child living in Everton mysteriously vanished, and now the abandoned town is drawing attention from two bureau agents investigating a mysterious blackout.

Starting point is 00:00:47 What will they find lying in wait beneath Everton? The podcast features a multitude of voice artists that you may recognise, such as Graham Rowett, Jordan Cobb, Tanya Milojevic, Zach Labresco, and others alongside. Margaret's Garden is available now on Spotify, as well as on all of your other favourite podcast sites. Visit margaretspodcast.com to find out more information. Rusty Quill Presents The Magnus Archives Episode 186 Quiet So this is it then. How dreary. Hello?

Starting point is 00:02:41 Anybody? Anybody? John? Hello? Hello? Big surprise? Well, at least I can still remember everything this time. And no more of those bloody chairs. It's weird, though. I've never actually been anywhere like this.

Starting point is 00:03:09 That said, it is kind of... Huh. Wuthering Heights. Yeah! God, I hated studying that. It was all just so... overblown. Yeah, but that cover. Those wide, empty spaces. It felt right, didn't it?

Starting point is 00:03:35 So, what? That's where we are? Right down to the monochrome. Hmm. Do you have an umbrella? No. But you don't want one. We like the rain. True. Because it makes the sadness feel at home. Turns it from a burden into an indulgence. That's right. So, what is this? You're part of me so you know everything about me, is that it? Yes. Because you're part of my domain.

Starting point is 00:04:14 Also yes. Some sort of cosmic joke about being alone with my thoughts, I assume? No, I'm here because you're trying very hard not to be alone. To resist the comfort. So instead I get to talk to myself. Apparently. Okay, so if I'm so desperate not to be alone, why isn't John here? He can find me anywhere. I don't know. Oh, yeah. Look, I know what you know. Maybe I'm just a bit more open about it. And what do you mean by

Starting point is 00:04:58 that? Like how you don't actually want him here? Maybe that has something to do with it? You've no idea what you're talking about. I mean, you can argue with me if you like. Seems like a bit of a waste, though. No, it's alright. It's hard to be vulnerable. No, it's not that. No? No, I just... I'm ashamed to let him see this place, alright? To see what... I don't know, what feeds me? Sure, that's part of it, but it's not the whole thing, is it? Not really. What do you mean? Well, if you don't count memory manor, when was the last time you were even on your own? Well, I...

Starting point is 00:05:44 Hmm. It has been a very long time since the Institute. That's a good point. It's okay to want a bit of space now and then. New romance is hard, and Armageddon makes it even harder. Never mind the fact that you're metaphorically joined at the hip thanks to the whole eye lord thing it's okay to want some space oh I see

Starting point is 00:06:12 see what? I get it so that's your deal you tell me what I want to hear to try and get me to stay seriously? fine if you don't want to engage if you want to pretend I'm just some temptation ghost, you go ahead. Knock yourself out. Like I said, I'm not your enemy. Oh really? I thought you said you were me. Right, yes, very clever. We have our moments.

Starting point is 00:06:39 I guess. Look, if you want to leave, you can. It's not a problem. You won't try to stop me. I mean, it really doesn't matter to me. You leave and I'm just you again. It's all the same to me, really. So why do you want me to stay then? Because you want to stay. why do you want me to stay then? Because you want to stay. Because you want to have a real rest. To just breathe and be quietly sad, I guess. It's not healthy.

Starting point is 00:07:21 Maybe not. But I'm not entirely sure what healthy options are even left at this point. We could talk to John about it. We could. But we both know that loved ones make the worst therapists. They're too wrapped up in trying to stop you hurting to actually help. But hey, we know all about that, am I right? There's nothing wrong with comforting people. A cup of tea isn't a resolution. At best it's a plaster, at worst, a muzzle.

Starting point is 00:07:54 Yeah, yeah. Even so, I could murder a cuppa. I doubt you've got a kettle out here, though. so I could murder a copper. I doubt you've got a kettle out here, though. As a matter of fact, I do have a thermos. You're joking! This is our domain. You're not supposed to suffer here. Well, not like the others.

Starting point is 00:08:16 You know what I mean. Here. Wait, that's... Wait, is that...? Yeah. Sorry about that. There's only so much we can do with the new world and everything. Even the good things get tinged with memory. Ugh, Oolong. Of course, of course.

Starting point is 00:08:51 Whenever I asked a question she didn't like or she wanted to stop the conversation, off you'd go to put the kettle on. And it always had to be that bloody Oolong. Ugh. Oolong. It wasn't your fault. Yes, it was. That's just the guilt talking. Oh, you think?

Starting point is 00:09:18 She was awful. She wasn't well. Both things can be true. She was still my mum. Oh, mum. Whatever. And we're glad mum. Oh, mum. Whatever. And we're glad she's dead. Jesus. Too much?

Starting point is 00:09:30 Like I said, I'm a bit more open. Don't lie. You don't need to. Not here. It's just us. If we're glad, why do I feel so... guilty? Because you feel guilty about everything. That's... that's not...

Starting point is 00:09:50 Your mother. Stress is a proper factor in a stress... Everything that's happened to John. I brought Jane Prentiss to the Institute. The end of the entire world. If I'd done what Peter had asked, if I'd not chickened out and just killed Elias when I had the chance? Really? Really?

Starting point is 00:10:08 That's how you're choosing to remember it? Chickening out? I remember it was the wrong choice. You choose to remember it that way, and so the guilt... I get it, alright? But I need it. I choose the guilt because... Because? Because it motivates

Starting point is 00:10:24 me to do better. Does it, though? Or does it just keep paralysing us, make us shrink back and wait, hoping things work out? Like with John when we thought the worms had got him. Hey, to be fair, he still kind of hated me back then. I'm really not sure it would have been the best time to take my shot.

Starting point is 00:10:45 Fair. He was projecting hard. Between us that guy's got some real issues. Hey, pretty sure we love that guy. Yeah, and all his many, many problems. Fine. Also, you know that's not what I'm talking about. It's this fantasy that you have that whatever you find at the top of the Panopticon is just going to solve everything. I don't... You do, though. You daydream about it. The big climactic showdown with Elias

Starting point is 00:11:13 and then the two of you kiss and push a button that just magically saves the world and makes everything better. It's actually not a button, so... Stop deflecting. So what? Okay, we should just give up hmm just stay here and curl up into a ball and just accept the world as it is hmm that's your big solution i'm saying there aren't any easy solutions we have no idea what's going to happen even if we make it to the tower we don't know there'll be a fix. And if by some miracle there is, we both know the price will be awful.

Starting point is 00:11:51 Just look at Melanie. We are completely out of our depth. We're responsible for everyone, everywhere, and we have no idea what we're doing. The last thing we need is self-indulgent guilt on top of that. I'm going to be a real manipulative prick, you know that. Oh yeah. Tea. Please. tea please so this price

Starting point is 00:12:46 what do you think are we going to have to kill John I don't know because you don't know but it seems like something we should at least consider I have thought about it and I won't I don't think I could I have thought about it, and...

Starting point is 00:13:05 I won't. I don't think I could. Mm-hmm. But anything else? Any other price? I'll pay it. Even dying. Pierre! John's as bad as we are. He wouldn't let it happen. It's not his decision. Fine. So flip't let it happen. It's not his decision. Fine, so flip that round then.

Starting point is 00:13:29 What are you going to do when he tries to sacrifice himself because you know he's going to try? I don't know, alright? I don't know. And that's okay for now, but I just want us to have thought about this stuff properly before it comes up. Because even if that's not it, chances are it'll be something else you don't want to do

Starting point is 00:13:44 and we need to make a proper choice. We can't just react out of shame or fear or whatever. What, like with Peter and Elias? Yes. That was a proper choice? I chose wrong. But you made a decision. Your own decision. Regardless of the outcome. decision, regardless of the outcome. I'll think about it. Will think about it. Sure. What about the people here? What people? I don't know. Like, prisoners, I guess? What about them?

Starting point is 00:14:34 Why haven't we talked about them? Because you didn't want to think about them. So, we didn't. Yeah? Well, I want to now. Consider it a proper choice, if you like. Okay. Can I see them?

Starting point is 00:14:50 No. This place is about hidden, unnoticed suffering. I can feel them, though. Sure, you're aware of it, dimly. A sort of far-off, lonely terror. But there's no way for us to actually see or hear them. Hmm. far off lonely terror, but there's no way for us to actually see or hear them. But if this is my domain, can I fix that? Like, can I change things? If you wanted to start actively tormenting them, I'm sure this place would oblige. But fixing things? place would oblige. But fixing things? Making it easier on them? Or freeing them? Probably not. Fine. Can you tell me about them? I can. Deep down we do know what's happening to them. Do we know who they are? We never met them in the old world although one of them is named Tim

Starting point is 00:15:46 just a coincidence I think unless it was a subconscious thing on our part tell me please like John would why? just so you can torture yourself? I want to know the exact limits of my guilt

Starting point is 00:16:04 fair enough can torture yourself. I want to know the exact limits of my guilt. Fair enough. I can't tell you their names, because we don't know them. Who they are, who they were, these details are lost to us. But they're also lost to them. Sometimes they get flashes, moments of people they might have been. Phantom pasts, the ghosts of happy futures. But they're empty, and vanish if they try to hold them. One of them is young, though he has always felt old. He has always felt tired. He has stood apart from everyone who ever cared for him

Starting point is 00:16:45 and never felt the distance his family were cold and so to keep that coldness at bay he built a towering wall between them and him he hid it in jokes and practiced smiles but on a cloudy day they could see it and when he was able to leave his family behind that wall came with him,

Starting point is 00:17:06 following him, keeping out the world. He would walk the streets of the city at night and wish the world away so it could be just him, with no one to know him or judge him or hurt him. Sometimes, when the emptiness inside began to bite he reached out for people and took a friend or a lover but when he did it was only to watch them beat themselves again and again against that wall until they finally relented and he was alone once more

Starting point is 00:17:39 he told himself it was for the best he told himself he liked it like that and now he is here the wall still surrounds him though now it encircles all the fields where he staggers wet from the rain and cold from the wind he calls out for somebody to see him for somebody to know how achingly hollow he is

Starting point is 00:18:03 he walks and walks and walks, desperate for another voice, for someone to know where he is and what he's going through, but he can't shout too loud. If he does, he feels the thick grey mulch rising from where it has settled in the hollow of his chest. It pushes up his throat and streams from his mouth instead of words. It is clouded and so bitterly cold that where it lands the scrubland grass turns brittle and crumbles away, leaving only ice, pulled from the deepest parts of him, hardened and crusted into a smooth, dark mirror,

Starting point is 00:18:41 reflecting his lined and careworn face against the clouded sky. The rain pricks his skin though there is no comfort in it because he knows he can never be warm and dry again. The wall is too high. But still he keeps walking, keeps crying out though quieter now. Nobody knows he's here, and even if they did, they wouldn't care. He has driven them all away, kept them so far from who he is that there is no one now to see his suffering. No one who cares. He falls to his knees, icy mud clinging to his legs, soaking through his threadbare trousers as tears and rain fall from his cheeks in equal measure. Next to him, a woman lies on her side, curled tight around herself, head tucked to her chest.

Starting point is 00:19:35 He does not see her, cannot hear her racking sobs so close to his. She could reach out her hand, touch his arm, his face, his heart and would feel nothing neither would ever know because at their core they are alone and nothing can release them from that absolute knowledge

Starting point is 00:19:57 she stands legs shaking from the cold from the effort her muscles locked in place and joints protesting at the shift. How long has she been lying there? How long have the fingers of despair locked around her throat? She doesn't know, and she feels in her bones that no one else does either. Nobody knows she's here, and she misses them all. Nobody knows she's here, and she misses them all.

Starting point is 00:20:30 She tries to picture her friends, a warm and smiling procession of faces, a technicolor memory that only makes the iron-gray sky that much duller, the misty drizzle that much colder on her face. What is she recalling? There was music once. Lights. Laughter. A birthday, maybe. Or a pub lunch?

Starting point is 00:20:51 They sat around on old chairs, comfortable chairs in the warm. The taste of wine was on her tongue and her mouth was curled into a smile. The carefree chatter of her friends surrounded her and soothed her. What did it? She wasn't talking, wasn't engaged with any of the bright and happy people. Her smile was fixed and deliberate, and it didn't quite match her eyes. She was among this joy, yes, these sparkling friends, but she was not a part of it. Not really.

Starting point is 00:21:25 She tried to be, wanted so desperately to not a part of it. Not really. She tried to be. Wanted so desperately to be a part of their easy warmth, and maybe they thought she was. But they hadn't known her. Not really. They hadn't seen the empty ice that filled her, that kept her apart from them, that she desperately tried to thaw

Starting point is 00:21:42 with each and every friendly face that smiled at her. The memory fades, and she shivers as her mind returns to the rain and the wind, tinged with the sting of salt and the slight stench of rotten seaweed, though there was never an ocean here. She feels the ice within her still, and knows she never found anyone to melt it, and now she never will. Those who tried she gripped so tightly that they couldn't breathe, and so she lost them anyway. Now nobody remembers her name. If they should stumble upon an old photograph, some half-remembered birthday party that still brings up a smile, and then see her face sat there amongst the revellers,

Starting point is 00:22:30 they will frown, just for a moment, as they try to remember her name. Then they will shrug, and forget they were even curious. They will not think to wonder about her. And it is this that she is so deeply afraid of, not the ache of her flesh from the bitter cold, not the cloying dampness of the rain, or the crushing fatigue from uncounted days, or weeks, or years without sleep.

Starting point is 00:22:59 It is the sure knowledge that nobody remembers her existence enough to even wonder idly where she might be, or ponder at her suffering. She screams her fear to the open air, but none beside her hear it. Thank you. I'm sorry. I know it's hard. Yeah. So, what are we thinking? I'm thinking that I didn't ask for this. It's not my fault they're here.

Starting point is 00:23:44 True. But I can't keep existing like this at their expense. It's not right. Whatever happens with Elias, with the rest of the world, I can't live on the misery of others. I get it, okay? I can't decide what happens to them, but I just might be able to decide what happens to me And if it comes down to it I'll get John to destroy me like the others You don't really believe he'd do it I don't know Maybe

Starting point is 00:24:20 This took a dark turn Yeah, but this time it doesn't feel like despair Maybe? This took a dark turn. Yeah, but this time it doesn't feel like despair. It feels like resolve. Well, hopefully it won't come to that. Hopefully. Thanks for the tea. You're welcome. So, how do I leave?

Starting point is 00:24:55 I think we just keep walking. And John? I kind of expected him to have interrupted already. I'm sure he'll find us eventually. The Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 international license. Today's episode was written by Jonathan Sims, produced by Laurie-Anne Davis, and directed by Alexander J. Newell. It featured Alexander J. Newell as Martin Blackwood.

Starting point is 00:25:44 To subscribe, buy merchandise, or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. is Martin Blackwood. Reddit at r slash the Magnus Archives. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone, Alex here. I'd just like to take a moment to thank some of our patrons. Ron Dempsey, Ashley Coles, Cassifrasian, Poor Potato, Inga Everson, Grace Tallman, I'd just like to take a moment to thank some of our Patrons. Thank you all. We really appreciate your support. If you'd like to join them, go to www.patreon.com forward slash Rusty Quill and take a look at our rewards. Audible is the leader in audiobooks, so you'll always find the best and freshest selection of mysteries and thrillers to choose from. Sometimes you just want to get lost in a classic whodunit, and sometimes you want to get wrapped up in a twisted new mystery

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The Magnus Archives - MAG 186 - Quiet

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