Statement of Lucia Wright, regarding a hole filled with meat.
Pre-Statement
Gertrude asks permission to record Lucia's statement, to which she agrees. She asks Gertrude if making the statement will help rid her of her nightmares. Gertrude states that if that is her primary goal she should speak to a counsellor, but adds that some people do find statement giving cathartic.
Statement
Lucia liked to travel, but her high pressure job meant she could not leave for long periods of time. Because of this she often took city breaks, spending long weekends anywhere with cheap flights. She would spend her time sight seeing at art galleries, guidebook recommended restaurants, and anywhere with a decent view of the whole city, but she always made a point to visit local churches. She was raised Church of England but stopped attending when she was fourteen. She was an atheist for a few years, but became fascinated with religion in her twenties, more so out of interest than genuine belief. Despite not believing in the god churches supposedly housed, she found them meditative and visited frequently.
Lucia jumped on a good deal for a five-day trip to Istanbul, having just read about Gnosticism in Constantinople. The core idea of Gnosticism was the dualism between the spiritual and the material worlds. Some movements even went so far as believing in not only a spiritual god, but a god of flesh and blood as well. In researching for her trip, Lucia located a Gnostic temple just outside of Istanbul and decided to pay it a visit.
The temple itself was disappointing and completely empty, other than an old woman she had seen leaving when she arrived. She did her best to shrug off a growing feeling of unease and exited the temple. The taxi she had taken was long gone, and she could not ask a staff member to call her one like she had planned due to their absence. She did not want to walk back to her hotel either, and whilst she was considering her options the roar of an engine alerted her to a heavy-looking truck slowly approaching. For some reason the truck filled her with an intense dread, and she stepped back behind a pillar, hoping she was out of sight.
The truck stopped. Three men got out and moved towards their covered load that smelled damp, slightly sour, with the faintest hint of iron. The tarp fell, revealing a massive pile of meat. At first, Lucia thought they were all human bodies, but some of them started moving. Squirming limbs extracted themselves out of the pile and made their way down to join their companions. Most of them could be mistaken for humans at a distance, and some even wore clothes. After a minute or so, it seemed that everything that was going to climb out of the pile had done so. The pile of meat still rose up a few meters. Most of it was unidentifiable chunks, with a lot of it clearly animals and some of it humans.
The driver, an East Asian man, started to reach up to the pile of meat. He took a handful and handed it to whoever was closest to him. He passed it on and whoever had it would turn and head towards the back of the temple to an area Lucia had assumed was staff only. They went in one at a time and did not come back out. Whilst this was happening, Lucia remained hidden. The temple stood apart from any other buildings, so if she tried to leave, there was a higher chance she would be spotted. She thought she would just wait until they finished, then she would leave.
Lucia's leg started to cramp up so she tried to change her position, but the unexpected pain caused her to let out a cry. The driver heard and called her over. His tone was firm but seemingly nonthreatening, so Lucia did what he asked. He stared at her for a few seconds, shrugged, and then handed her a pile of meat. In her surprise, she took it. The driver nodded to himself like he had made the right decision, so Lucia turned and started to walk towards the door, afraid that any hesitation might cause the driver to change his mind.
As she approached the temple, Lucia saw one of the others: a woman with arms that bent backwards. Their eyes met but the woman passed quickly on her way back to the truck and Lucia continued forwards, down a stone staircase that led far deeper than any normal basement might have been. At the bottom she found a cavernous room with a massive pit in the centre. The others stood around the edge, throwing their burdens into it. The pit was filled with a pile of meat that dwarfed that on the truck, on a hundred trucks. There was no visible bottom to the pit, and as far as she knew it may have been endless. It wasn't until the pile moved that she realised it was a mouth. When she threw in her pile of meat, it accepted it greedily.
Lucia continued to move meat back and forth. She had decided there was a better chance of escape once the truck was empty, but as one truck emptied, another arrived. There was no end to them, and the work went on for another whole day. Lucia was exhausted, but she could not stop. When the woman with the backwards arms had collapsed, her companions had thrown her into the flesh pile without hesitation. Lucia swore she would not follow. The pile continued to grow as more workers collapsed, replaced by others brought by new trucks. Lucia was not sure what would happen when the pile reached the top, but she knew it would be horrible.
She was standing at the foot of the stairs when, to her relief, an explosion shook the chamber. As the room collapsed and the thing below cried out, Lucia sprinted up the stairs and made it halfway before they too gave out, burying her beneath the temple. After an unknown period of time a delirious Lucia was found by a team of Turkish rescue workers. They continued searching for survivors, but they did not tell her what they found. They paid for her flight home and that was it.
After the statement is complete, Lucia claims not to feel any better. Gertrude says that it is a shame, and offers her a number for the counselling service she mentioned previously.
Final Comments
Gertrude indicates that this event was the Last Feast, the Ritual of The Flesh. Adelard Dekker provided the explosives that allowed her to stop the ritual, though it was unfortunate that the historic temple had to be destroyed. Gertrude was worried when she heard that there were survivors who might have been able to identify her, but Lucia does not seem to remember her at all.
Gertrude concludes that the truck driver was Tom Haan and might be more of a problem, but hopefully he is weakened enough by the failure of the ritual to not be an issue. She also notes it will be worthwhile to watch out for additional esoteric fallout from the ritual attempt, like Carlisle, likely referring to the events of MAG 18. It is also good to know that some rituals can be disrupted through conventional means, though some will need a more nuanced approach. Gertrude can't rely on having so much time to plan, as it took a long time to gather the meat for this ritual, so in the future she will need to be a little more proactive.
Post-Statement
John concludes The Web has given him this statement because he needs a flesh anchor. He intends to amputate a body part so he can return from The Coffin.
Continuity
- Related Entity: The Flesh
| ATTENTION! SPOILERS AHEAD!! This section contains information from later episodes of The Magnus Archives and may contain major spoilers for the setting and plot. Continue at your own risk. |
- In MAG 131: Flesh, Jared Hopworth says that though he declined to join others who spoke about gods and changing the world, some of his "mates" who he had "helped find proper bodies," decided to join. The movement he was invited to was likely this ritual, and those mates are possibly among the distorted meat creatures described in this statement.