Lot 119 : Harmony Care Home VI (FINALE)

Unremarkable in design, utility grade, no ornamentation,

and yet, there is blood.

“What follows is not how it began, no, no.”

You've already seen that. This is the final cut. And the finale of Harmony Care Home. Chapter 6. Before we begin, I want to point out some of the customers whose names have been etched in brass

on this beautiful black I had made above the front desk.

These are some of the members of the inner circle of the Antiquarium. We go by the Obsidian Covenant. Recent initiates include Jen Asves, David Fessendon, Cassie Rastannis, Ignasi Ostrauski, Crusher S, Wayward Strategy,

Tal Tiger Robinson, and Tenacious T. We are ever appreciative of your devotion to the order.

Go to the Obsidian Covenant.com to receive the sacrament.

Sounds harmless enough, right? Welcome to the Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings, and odd goings on. (Music) November 29th, 2023.

That's the date of my last post about Harmony Care Home. Interesting fact, Emma and I recently celebrated Rantiversary.

“We know we've been together for about two years, but we can't remember either of us.”

How we first met. Funny thing to forget in your anniversary, by the way. Opening this old box of relics from the Care Home, reading these old posts. Really bringing it all back, but it's hazy. Like a dream.

Like it all happened as someone else. It's kind of, I don't know, nostalgic. But also sad that we don't get to keep any of this in our heads. I know it'll disappear as soon as I finish fucking reading.

“But hey, better to be alive and amnesic than dead.”

So anyway, here it is, my final post from November 29th, 2023. Chronicling the end of Harmony Care Home. In 1963, a beautiful young blonde stepped into the office of Rodrick Crane. Rodrick was handsome, intelligent, and mesmerizing. And the young Lolita Carmichael felt deeply under his sway.

Whether she had sadistic tendencies before then as a mystery, but what is certain is that by the time Rodrick found it Harmony Care Home, in 1969, renovating the original building and adding the sub basement with its special room. Lolita was wholly devoted to his bloody rituals. Residents often reported hearing shrieks overnight. And in the morning, the deceased would be shipped out and body bags for cremation.

Some residents reported being brought downstairs. Having hot wax stripped onto their skin, or strange words chanted over them at a pitch dark room. These allegations were dismissed as signs of the patient's dementia, but the allegations persisted. And after one resident was found with maggots dripping out of open wounds. And another fled into the night to die of hypothermia, a flurry of media attention put the care home in the national spotlight.

Then, on August 16, 1981, the fire began.

“That would ultimately claim over a dozen lives, and permanently shutter its doors.”

Whether Rodrick truly intended to use the blazes means to complete the ritual, or whether he merely intended to collect them the insurance is vastly unclear, but what is clear is that Lolita was now a liability to Rodrick. He escaped alone, leaving the building to burn with his former assistant inside. Though strangely, the fire abated of its own accord shortly after he left. Causing mostly cosmetic damage to the building, saved for the destroyed south wing.

Harmony Care Home set abandoned for decades. Until 2003, when a woman named Queenie Smith arrived to inspect the property for redevelopment, after rediscovering a beautiful but comatose blonde with a broken neck in the basement, Queenie fell into the care home spell, becoming nurse to the young woman. Soon after that, Queenie vanished.

“Her identity and assets taken over by the sleeping blonde in room 333,”

who by this time was recruiting more staff and residents. The rest, as they say, is history. As for the future, Harmony Care Home has been slowly accumulating funds, with a plan for total renovation and a grand reopening to attract an influx of new residents. But the care home was hit hard by the sudden consecutive losses of a dead nurse and manager.

And it was around this time that a con man came along. Hey folks, Jack here. I had to play a trick with my last post. Sorry about that, but I figured if you were fooled, I know for sure she was.

Let's unpack my lies for a second.

“The truth is, becoming a resident was always the plan.”

There was just no way I was going to get into that ritual room and see that name carved in the ceiling without being converted, right? But I had to make a look like I was trying. Even if I was mostly just trying not to shit my pants. Obviously, I avoided mentioning Lilita's history before this post. I investigated her right at the outset, but it was imperative.

She think I dismissed her. Also, there's one very important thing I neglected to tell you about. It happened when Lucas and I first encountered the custodian in the ritual room. Remember I mentioned a book on the table? Well, what I didn't mention to you is that I actually tore most of the pages from that book and hid them and brought them out with me.

Those moments down in that dim corridor with the lights flickering off one at a time were truly the most terrifying I've ever experienced.

But if I hadn't been for Lucas' fuck up with the elevator, we'd never have stumbled across the book and it was in the pages of the book that the seeds of this whole plan started.

So I'd be remiss not to mention it. Also, I didn't come up with a plan solely on my own. I had input from Emma, Aaron, Minji, Danothers. My object has a lot of folks. Yep. I haven't mentioned it as much before because well it was safer not to really. But now let's talk about Emma and Aaron and Lucas and Arlene and every fucking body else and what they've all been up to.

While I wasn't room 313. In the beginning of her hospitalization, Darlene begged to be returned to Harmony Carroll. But after several days she underwent a dramatic physical and mental recovery and by the time of discharge she'd mostly return to her old self. And believed she'd stayed at Harmony Carroll home to recover from an illness. She expressed a desire to return some day in her sunset years but for the time being seemed happy in her daily life.

And was especially overjoyed to be greeted by Prometheus, waiting for her home. Yep. Emma took him back. Can't believe how much Emma is to big fluffball. Thanks for all the fish he kisses buddy. Lucas, well he actually had a harder time reconciling his memories of Harmony Carroll home with reality. Since he was shocked to find he'd essentially been a missing person while working his new job.

Furious over his stolen days, he became a dedicated part of Emma's team and suggested using fire for the final plan. Insisting that if the fire department were called, he can ensure his colleagues would trust our story and help us against the leader.

The only way forward to fight the amnesia was by making sure she always came and touched the peeling sign.

Touch made the illusion fall away so that she could see the black grime streaking its surface. Only then would she reveal our notes and videos actually believe them. The duration of my time in room 313, Emma lived in an Airbnb nearby so that she would not miss a day of touching that sign. Then around 10 each morning, after she'd gotten her own memories in order, she'd messaged the others and made meet up to resume her main project, reaching out to families. You see, breaking the amnesia is difficult but not impossible.

Especially when some of these family members already had niggling doubts about the fate to their loved ones. Emma's tireless efforts allowed her to slowly make inroads with about a dozen people at recently lost relatives. In short, while I was stuck in 313 typing up reddit posts, Emma was laying the groundwork.

Doing all the heavy lifting that would be critical to her plan.

“And now, let's pause and talk about some of those secret messages I spent so much time crafting.”

If you bother to decode the ciphered messages like Emma did, they came out to spoil her alert. This is when you go back and try and figure it out by the way before you come back here. Number 1, inside I am trapped in room. Number 2, 313. Number 3, 3 days left to go. Number 4, find ritual in sub basement and...

Number 5, kill schism to be low leader.

They explain the plan. Sneak into the sub basement to perform the ritual using the name or at least the word "rotricus" when summoning the entity, which was schism. Also, these messages set the time for a plan's execution. Three days left to go, which brings us to now the moment I post. The moment Emma reads and decodes the final message. So let's go there now, shall we?

At the moment of the final message, Emma is probably at her usual coffee shop with Aaron and Lucas and Minji. All of them reviewing their notes because they have to do this every morning due to the amnesia. Lucas maybe asks Emma something like... Did you guys really go? Shut up, no. Maybe... I don't remember.

“Like I actually do remember him. Because I remember working there and I know their false memories or whatever, but he was a visitor and we went down the elevator and he tried to hold my hand the whole time.”

She actually does, no, we hooked up. Because she has a video message she made for herself about it, but she doesn't share that with a group because of how strange it makes her feel. She's also wearing my hoodie, same when I've got on the video with my face stitched up and maybe the feel of it or the scent of it helps to remember me just a little bit. But mostly, she's driven by her memories of what the care home did to grams. Because of what she recalls when she touches the peeling sign each morning, she remembers meeting with me in the parking lot and the book with the chicken soup dust jacket.

She's got the book now. And then, she remembers seeing grams holding the dead cat. The dust jacket, coming off. In her note, she is written. I've read all tracks posts and it's like, I know his face when I see him in the videos.

“I even know what he's going to say, usually something idiotic and joking, but who is this guy?”

If nothing else, I have to rescue him from this care home so I can at least meet him. Emma is still writing when she gets a notification. She reads the final post, writes down the decoded message, and immediately begins reaching out to the family she's connected with. And now, while Emma and Company are reading my post, I'm hunched at my keyboard, jaw clenched and head swimming. Trying with all my might to stay in the present, because it's been over two weeks, and the illusion, it really does swim in and out.

When my fingers are tapping on the keys, I remember. But when I just sit here, it seeps over me.

Part of my exhaustion is sleep deprivation.

“Seriously, how many winks would you catch an haunted girl?”

I've also had very little to eat because I don't have a fridge in this room, and the only food I trust is the chips and prepackaged stuff I brought with me, so I've mostly been operating on caffeine and terror. In short, that was a mess before I got connected to the custodian. But ever since the connection, the more I exercise, the more I eat, the more I try to regain energy, the more deeply I'm drained. So I haven't really been moving much in the past few days. My phone pings.

Emma. We're only supposed to message each other casually to pretend everything's normal. It's probably some bullshit just to throw a lead off for today. I open it, so I can craft to reply. Minji found out we hooked up, and keeps joking about me having babies.

We used protection, right? I just stare. Stare for ages. Total disbelief. And then I laugh.

But I have so hard, I almost cry.

Emma, read your notes again, babe.

“Dick can't have my babies no matter how much you want him.”

I never said I want to. What are you talking about? It was a question. I'm trans. Emma, if I got you pregnant, that would be some immaculate conception miracle.

Oh. Okay. You really don't remember me, tell you. My heart is hammering my ribs like it's going to shatter them. Panic rising.

Because if she's forgotten me,

if she's forgotten the fucking plan, I'm not going to be trapped here. We'll have to escape on my own. And suddenly I can't breathe. Can't think, can't process anything.

“My vision closes in until there's only three dots blinking across the screen.”

Breath helped my life suspended there. The dots vanish. Emma doesn't respond. The air leaves my body in a woosh. I don't remember sinking to the floor.

But the next thing I'm sensible of is that I'm leaning against the wall below the window. Angling my head to see the blue sky in here bird's chirping. And some part of me goes that it's November. And the forecast is cloudy. And I shouldn't hear bird's song.

But I close my eyes and listen anyway. And pretend I feel the sunshine. And I just sink back into the illusion. Because there is nowhere left for me to go. Meanwhile, Emma Lucas Aaron and Minji arrive at the Carol.

Converging with family members of residents whom Emma contacted. It is the most visitors that have ever gathered at one time since the Carol home's closure four decades ago. After some brief discussion and after everyone has touched the sign and the peeling paint. Gemma Rivera, the sister of Ronnie, leads the family members into the lobby

to demand to visit their loved ones. Emma Lucas and Aaron mean while sneak across the grounds to the damaged south wing and fling molotops and smoke bombs. While Minji drives into cellular range and calls the fire department. Before long, flames roll out of the broken windows at the south wing.

Sirens whale. I am so immersed in the dream of bird's song and sunshine that I almost don't hear the frickin' sirens. It's like being high. And intoxicating blend of euphoria and despair

because I don't want to wake up back to reality. But as a sirens grow louder, part of my brain whispers. Hey Jack. Get up. The plan.

Move! And despite the exhaustion, my muscles tense. Limbs dragging me upwards into the door. Oh god. My legs feel so atrophied.

I didn't realize how bad it wasn't till now. With my muscles wobbling like jelly beneath me. I'm not sure if I can even make it to the ritual room. Come on, Jack. You used to do parkour. You can fucking handle stairs.

Feeling my way down the corridor, I paused twice to catch my breath.

“By the time I make it to the lobby, firefighters and family members are arguing with O'Lita”

and the dead nurse is about evacuating. I can't really hear what's going on. There's a lot of confusion in the cacophony of voices. Avoiding the crowd, I duck around the hallway and down to the basement stairs. Open the door and plunge in. Pitch. Black.

For God, about the pitch black. Normally my inner monologue would supply me with a little humor to help me through the scary bits, but it's just a series of "Fuck Meas" over and over again. Mixed with some, say goodbye, Jacks. I'm too ill and exhausted for levity.

In the pitch dark basement, it's always possible to meet the custodian.

I scurry as fast as I can to the hidden door to the stairwell that leads down to the ritual room. I've just passed through the door when. Something is behind me.

“And I slam the door shut and quickly to send the final staircase down to the ritual room.”

The staircase is the wall. Seemingly stretching forever. And there are no railings. I cling to the walls. Desperately praying I don't stumble.

He's easy to break my neck and a dumb way to die after I've been through. And then... Then I'm in the ritual room. I flick on the light switch and a single golden orb illuminates the table. Casting the wood in the rug in the symbols and stark relief,

while leaving the rest of the room shuddered in darkness. I lurch forward. Fumble in my pockets for the pages on which I've made notes of the incantation in the name. Something clatters behind me. I turn my head.

Squint into the darkness that has shaped shuffling just outside of the light. Ronnie, he's followed me down the staircase. I'm just about to retreat when cold fingers seize my wrist. Another hand grabs my other arm. Even if I had the strength to thrash and fight the grip of the dead,

his face like. And their rotting odor chokes me. I'm dragged away from the table and into the center of the room. Burned Gerard, Kendra, and the other living dead are all around me. An ambush.

And then I whisper at my hair. And the glowing figure of Lolita appears beside me. Grining ear to ear beneath wide, blue eyes. Hey Jack. Hmm, no, not while she's listening.

If we allow that moment through now, it will be noticed. One moment, stay exactly where you are. Before we continue, a brief matter of bookkeeping. You see, even here, in a place such as this, things have a way of accumulating. Small charges.

“Items one does not remember agreeing to, unattended they grow.”

Quietly. Restlessly. Subscriptions in particular, one concerning Funerary Textiles in Eastern Europe. Another, accordingly, on the surgical anomalies.

Useful at times, but not always necessary to maintain.

And that is precisely why I've taken to using Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find, and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. It allows me to see everything in one place,

particularly those recurring charges that might otherwise go unnoticed. And when something is no longer required, it can be handled within the app in just a few taps. No need to go searching for where to begin. It also organizes transactions automatically, clear categories, patterns,

and full accounting of where things are going. There is a certain comfort in that. In knowing nothing is slipping through. If you've been need to bring your own accounts into order,

Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com/Synister. That's RocketMoney.com/Synister. RocketMoney.com/Synister.

“Decind into the unexplained and unimaginable.”

Mom said to them, "What are you here for? What do you want?" "What are you doing? What are you doing?" True accounts of crimes and anomalies so strange, they defy reasoning. It was extreme violence.

I've never seen anything like that.

She was forced to eat human flesh and survive the unthinkable. Welcome to the Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings and documented atrocities. At that moment, a feeling to survive, kicked in, almost like an animal instinct.

I told her to run. I knew that minute something terrible had happened. Why would somebody do this to him? Why would they try to hurt my baby?

“Search the Antiquarium of documented atrocities on Apple Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.”

A presentation of Bloody FM.

Why hello there. You've reached the Antiquarium.

If you wish to leave a message, please do so with the tone and have a great day. Hi, I'm calling about a special. I picked up a little bit ago. I wanted to name up him and run it. Well, that was something in my house.

It looks like my mom and it keeps saying my name, but it's not getting right. I don't know what to do. So, some health on that would be nice. Thanks.

End of messages. Ah, good.

“We'll continue a little out of sequence.”

It's safer that way. Now then, let's return to him before he understands what's about to happen. Shall we? The first time I visited Queenie in room 333,

I had no idea who she was. Only that she was among the oldest at the carom. A bed-ridden, rumpled old lady.

It seemed to be always sleeping.

Unlike most residents who lasted only a few weeks to a few months, she lived here. 40 years. I had a better idea of her identity than next time I met her. When I entered in the role of manager to fix the phone in her room,

I approached her bedside to tell her the phone was fixed and squeezed her withered hand. Her skin felt smooth. Y'all, for a fraction of a second, the illusion broke. She was a beautiful and ageless blonde.

Eyes closed and endless dreaming. Then I realized her hand in the wrinkles returned. The old woman appeared to scowl at me. I smiled as if I hadn't noticed a thing and said, "Alright, well the phone's working, so just ring if you need anything, Queenie, okay?"

That encounter confirmed my suspicions of what happened in 1981. Ready for this? Lolita is Queenie, and beneath the illusion she hasn't aged a day. My guess is Rodrick broke her neck on that faithful night, intending her to die, but she did not die.

Instead, she achieved something Rodrick continually failed. She completed the ritual, and summoned something from the other side. You see, Rodrick spends so much time sacrificing others, like a man killing only one turkey, then it doesn't to make a bigger feast. But they were not truly a sacrifice, because they meant nothing to him.

But the pain and anguish and misery, Lolita experienced as she laid dying of a broken neck, was not another person's, but her own. Her suffering, as she offered herself, was real,

It gave her more to life, while locking her ageless body in a coma.

From within this accursed sleep, she could dream herself back into her perfect youth, dream the care home into whatever reality she wished, and draw others into that dream. She could control the dead, moving them like puppets and seeing through their eyes, and after I was converted through mine.

If the custodian is the care home's paranormal beating heart, Lolita is the brain, and she can continue living this way forever, so long as she keeps the custodian fed. The living dead dragged me to my knees like a prisoner before a queen. I mean, I kind of thought you'd be distracted to be honest.

“I knew you'd make one last big try, but where are your friends?”

Poor Jack, did they forget about you? I'm coming with the feds, and I've been sitting on her notes on this fucking place. You're on the mat, Lolita. You're getting a shut down. This time for good. Come on now, these last ditch lies a pretty pathetic.

Hey, this part's important, the secret messages. What? Are you sure you decoded them correctly? What? Or...

What are you doing here? She demands staring off at something I can't see. Guess you didn't decode them that correctly, then you might have missed a secret secret message. There was a cipher. But then there was the secret.

“Secret message where you only read the first and last word of each-”

Shut up! You bring this babbling idiots. The dead hands gripping my arms, fling me into a bookshelf, knocking old volumes off at the topel around me. My head rings from the impact. I'm trying to push myself up and one of the dead grabs me again, and slams me down on the table.

I still find it in me to snicker as she screams at me. Jack, you little shit. The cipher for decoding the messages was simple. So that you, dear listener, and definitely low-lead to be able to solve them. But the deeper message.

You are almost certain to miss it unless you knew the system and I agreed upon beforehand. Only the first and last words of each-to-coated message matter. The true secret message treats. You're playing along, you already know what this is, please. Here were me.

God at least try. Inside room 333, go find and kill Lolita. And this is why in my prior post I had to pretend.

“Lolita was an important enough to factor into my considerations.”

I wanted her to think I was dead set on the ritual. And that she could bring all her puppets down here to meet me and stop me.

Except I was never going to take out the custodian.

If I've learned anything from previous paranormal encounters, it's not to miss with any sort of entity. But unlike the custodian Lolita, it's human, with human faults and foibles. She got used by Rodrick. When he had her like the fire and then all but murdered her.

And if Rodrick could trick her, I could too. She thought I was here to play the hero. I already said, Jack here isn't the hero in any universe, not by any stretch of the imagination. Nope, Emma's the hero. I'm just here as a distraction.

Lolita and her puppets are ambushing me. Emma Lucas and Aaron are nowhere near. Nope, they don't even enter the building. They might be seen by one of Lolita's puppets. Instead, they sneak around outside,

keeping well away from view and dressed in firefighter clothes so that they won't arouse any suspicion should someone glance out the windows. Lucas, the train firefighter, helps them set the long ladder to the window from 33.

And then, Lucas descends first.

Followed by Aaron in lastly, Emma. All three armed with fire access, door machetes. Unshattering the window and climbing in. Lucas finds himself face-to-face with a bed-breathing opponent.

Bring her down, it's the right room.

“Lucas immediately reaches for the old woman.”

Only to swear when a cold hand seizes him from behind and drags him backwards. Aaron climbs faster, scrambling into the room just in time to see an impossible sight. An old man throttling, Lucas. Lolita kept one of her dead residents with her. My gamble apparently not succeeding in luring all of her living dead down into the basement.

Can't fault me for trying. Aaron rushes forward. Football tackling the old man only discreeting when upon his contact with the corpse he breaks the illusion. And finds himself face-to-face with Jacob, Mortimer. Magnets, wriggling and rotting eyes.

He's falling from his gaping mouth. He fucking kills.

Aaron skiers away on his backside while Lucas coughs and chokes.

Struggling to sit up. The dead man lunges for them. I'll kill you.

“I roll off the table and duck behind him.”

But then the corpse of Kevin Jones lifts that hole heavy thing right up. Oh shit. I try to crawl back but there's nowhere to go. She brings a solid oak table down on top of me. Meanwhile, Aaron swings his machete as Jacob Mortimer lunges with almost inhuman speed.

Emma climbs into the window just as a dead man takes the machete in the arm. But then grabs Aaron's face. Shrieking. Emma leaves on Jacob Mortimer's back only to be shrugged off effortlessly. But Lucas is up now.

Axon hand.

The dead man staggers as Lucas tries the axe into his skull.

He releases Aaron turning to face Lucas who backs away. Aaron tells her she disappeared as he snatches up his machete again, lunging once more at the dead man. While Lucas and Aaron circle the dead man. Emma looks frantically around the room.

“She knows the dead man will eventually kill them.”

Knows from my story about the murdered cop that these living dead are far stronger than they look. And more are most definitely on the way up from the basement by now. She must act fast. But where's Alita? How is it possible she disappeared?

Before climbing into the room, Emma saw Lucas reaching down toward that bed beside the window. And then suddenly, Emma understands. Unlike me, Emma cannot see through the illusion. But she doesn't have to. Because she has noticed where the dead man battles Lucas and Aaron.

And where he avoids. And that he is keeping them from coming near the empty bed. And Emma lunges with her machete snarling. And brings it down with all her might in an arc to that empty pillow where someone had recently laid. And the blade cleaves straight into flesh.

Into the shoulder of a sleeping young woman with fond hair. And the illusion of the screen pierces the air. And then Emma reels back. And swings again. And this time, it takes the head off.

When the Lolita illusion disappears, the living dead in the ritual room collapse. The will that was puppeting them gone. I'm still lying beneath that heavy overturned table. A live, but I've got no strength to lift it or wriggle out from under it. I'm stuck.

Unless someone comes down and saves me. Or... Tinkles. Oh, I know these tinkles. Not the custodian.

No, these are hot, cold. And even though I've just gone through an experience objectively far scarier than anything I've dealt with before. Still the reaction in my body is purely physical. I've got branching. Hard-thudding.

I'm still clenching. Fear. I cannot control the cut punch of terror. Any more that I can stop the crawling in my skin. It's terror I know very.

Very well. Hey, lady. I say, by way of greeting as a shadow's coldness around me. A woman steps out of the dark. She wasn't there before.

But her vivid red dress is unmistakable. Hugging her curves and pooling around her shapely legs.

Hmm. Hey, Chad. I said that time then. Pretty sure she's here to kill me. Probably by tracing those claws across my skin and then peeling the skin right off and reaching in to tug out my guts and

time in a nice bow while I'm screaming and screaming.

It's pretty much how I always imagine it.

Let's do it. But she says. I know you'll sign a contract with me now. You'd rather do something. It's a whole little you wasteful like die here in this place.

And become the Skism's permanent manager. But what they jack?

“I don't want to remember anything about that day.”

Well, frankly neither do I. Be on my notes, of course. That's for the care home itself. Now let's become a dead zone.

Cored and off by the authorities.

Even the street that runs by is permanently blocked. All website material related to it is disappeared. Including all my reviews. And no longer pops up on GPS. I don't know what government team or agencies are responsible,

but it would seem they did a very thorough cleanup. I've got one more thing I'd like to tell you about. A video M I took on the morning. I was about to sign myself into the care home. We were in the parking lot.

“I just lit a joint, presumably to shake off some of the jitters.”

And M I aimed her phone at me and started recording. M I we know what's going to happen. The camera shakes. Turns until Emma has a facing on herself. Her eyes shimmering in her mouth set with determination as she talks to the camera.

The camera flicks to me before turning back to herself. When I look at this video, I see a beautiful girl who's faced silently wrecking eyes from our shared notes. And this beautiful girl has just bravely pouring out her heart. Then she turns the camera on a man in his late 20s.

A man who looks like he's been through it. His dark eyes are tense with what I have to assume is at least three-quarter parts, terror. Given what he's about to do. But also, he looks frozen by emotions he doesn't quite know how to process. When he says,

My promise, he looks at the camera. At me. Like he knows I'm going to be watching in the future and it'll be on me to keep this promise or not. And for the life of me, I cannot decipher what he means by that book.

Tell her. Not tell her.

“Does any of it even matter when we can't remember each other?”

I look at the video. And it's like watching raw emotional footage of two strangers. What would I even say to that girl in the video now? What does a girl like her got to do with a guy like me?

But here's what I would tell her, I guess.

I wish you and your grams and the cats all the best. I consider making this post to be fulfillment of my promise to the past you from the video. Promise delivered. And I hope that maybe that past version of you can be happy now. Knowing that you're okay.

I'm okay. Everything turned out okay. And hey, I mean I remember you but the guy in the video sends his love. He wanted me to tell you that. To tell you both to be happy.

Now and forever. Love. Jack. Aw. Well that was illuminating.

Explains all these weird dreams I have about the creepy room I see when I close my damn eyes. Well, until next year when we forget again how we met and I pull out this dusty box from Harmony Care Home. Happy anniversary, babe. HF-S-Y-W-K-R-K-R-G-J-W-D-T-Z-H-F-S-Y-K-T-W-L-J-Y-D-T-C. Thank you for your patronage.

Hope you enjoyed your new relic as much as I've enjoyed passing along its sorted history. It does come with our usual warning, however.

No exchanges.

“And we won't be held liable for anything that may.”

Or may not occur while the object is in your possession.

If you've got an artifact with mysterious properties, perhaps it's a company by a history of bizarre and disturbing circumstances.

“Maybe you'd be interested in dropping it and it's story by the shop to share with other customers.”

Please reach out to [email protected].

A member of our team will be in touch.

“Until next time, we'll be waiting for you whenever you close your eyes.”

In the space between sleep and dream.

During regular business hours, of course, or by appointment, only for you, our best customer. You'd have a good night now. The Antiquarium of sinister happenings, lot one-one-nine, harmony-care-home chapter-six, consigned by Quincy Lee, starring Trevor Shand, Addison Peacock, Magda Appanovic, Dequintero, and Conan Freeman, featuring Stephen Knowles as the antique dealer. Engineering production and sound design by Trevor Shand and Lauren Shand, theme music by the new brothers.

Additional music by Coag, Vivek Appashek, Clement Panchau, Nicholas Reading, and Conan Freeman. The Antiquarium of sinister happenings is created and curated by Trevor and Lauren Shand. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @Antiquariumpod, call the Antiquarium at 646-41-7197. [Music]