Statement of Sunil Maraj, regarding their work as a security guard and the disappearance of their co-worker Samson Stiller.
Pre-Statement
Basira visits Elias in jail, and immediately assaults him. She is angry that he sent them to the north pole for nothing while neglecting to mention that John has been feeding on innocent people’s trauma. She threatens to make the police withdraw their special treatment but Elias rightfully points out that she does not have as much influence as she used to, while he has been feeding the police useful information. Exasperated, Basira leaves.
John is incredulous that Basira has been getting information from Elias this entire time, but he is not surprised that he did not have any advice regarding John’s new “diet”. Basira lays it out in simple terms, John will stop feeding on people’s trauma or she will put him down. If Daisy is managing, then so can he.
Statement
Sunil Maraj quit their job last week. They were not fired, they just could not keep working there after what happened to Samson, and the company would rather they stop asking questions about it.
Sunil worked as a security guard alongside Samson Stiller. They had gotten unlucky with their contract and been shuffled between numerous sites in just two years. It worked just fine for Sunil but it was hard on Samson as he had a three year old and lived down in Morden. When they are eventually reassigned to a shopping centre in Stratford, Samson is not in a great place.
The security office is a mess of mismatched technology and jumbled cables. Samson sets about sorting it out and actually gets it working decently. There is one piece of equipment that still refuses to cooperate, an old Tecton multicamera recorder from the late 80s. He swallows his pride and looks for the manual. It is a small thing, no more than ten pages of A5 paper, worn and yellowed, with someone's name written on the front. Sunil swears that they see a picture of themself in it when glancing at it.
Samson seems almost entranced by it and from that point he grows increasingly creepy. He is always at work and simply brushes it off when asked about it. Sunil always finds him staring wide-eyed at the monitors, drinking it all in.
They start to feel watched when they are in the actual shopping centre. They know where all the cameras are, and keep an eye on them. Many of the cameras are fixed, looking at one point, but Sunil sees them swivel impossibly to focus on them. They throw a can of deodorant at one of them and for the next two days, Samson wears sunglasses. Sunil catches a glimpse of his eyes and there is a crack right down the centre of one of them.
Sunil is not at work when Samson disappears. They get a frantic call from Dave, another security guard. He is incoherent, repeating Samson’s name and asking “what do we do with his eyes?”. Sunil does not know what to say and hangs up after Dave says “He won’t stop, we can’t get rid of his face.” while sobbing.
When they go back to work, both Dave and Samson are gone. Several other workers also quit suddenly and Sunil is not able to find out what happened as no one will answer their questions. They never see Samson again, just find his shredded work shirt wrapped around the old instruction manual. Sunil throws the shirt away and sticks the manual back in a cabinet.
They start asking too many questions after that. Why had Samson not signed out of the building before disappearing? Why, no matter who tried to reset the security system, did it always log back in as him? Why, whenever they were watching the monitors alone, did they see Samson on one of the old CRT screens. Staring right back at them, quietly calling for Sunil to join him.
Post-Statement
John wonders if reading a statement of The Eye counts as some sort of auto-cannibalism. Regardless, he is finding it harder and harder to ignore how each statement seems to be giving him less and less satisfaction. He cannot bring himself to care whether Sunil Maraj is still alive or not, his mind is already wandering to the next statement, hoping it will not be quite as stale.
Continuity
- Related Entity: The Eye, possibly The Extinction