THE LIFE INSTITUTION

CURSE

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[LIZZIE]
And you're absolutely going to investigate this?

[SCOTT]
Lizzie, how long have we known each other?

[LIZZIE]
Fair.

[SCOTT]
Now.

Statement of Lizzie Beans, regarding her husband's strange behaviour-

[LIZZIE]
Bit of an understatement!

[SCOTT]
It has to sound academic!

Original statement recorded direct from subject today, September 2nd, 2023. Audio recording by Scott S. Major, Head archivist of the Life Institution, Edinburgh. Statement begins.

[LIZZIE(STATEMENT)]
I think my husband Joel has been cursed and I don't know what to do.

We were gonna go meet up with Cleo and BigB- should I call him that?

[SCOTT]
mhm. BigB. We've all heard of him.

[LIZZIE(STATEMENT)]
Ok.

We were going to meet with them at Salerno— you know how nice that place is, right? I think BigB was worried he wouldn't fit in or something.

Point is, we got lost on the way I think. I called Cleo the moment I realised we might be late, but Joel assured me he hadn't taken a wrong turn and we'd get there just fine.

We did not. I told him so the moment I stopped recognizing the street signs— "I knew you'd get us lost" and all that. I love Joel but he always takes unnecessary shortcuts.

He didn't respond, just kept staring down the road. I kept trying to get his attention but- When he looked at me...

I've only ever seen the way he looked at me one other time. I'm sure you read Jimmy's statement about our hunting trip. Joel looked kinda like that. Then he stopped the car in front of a... a bookstore. He muttered something about not wanting to show up to a birthday dinner without a gift, and we both got out of the car.

It was a dusty old place, and had a sign above the door labelled "Secretkeepers". Joel opened the door without a second thought. I admit that I hesitated. I'm not ashamed. You'd be scared too if your partner started acting weird and drove you to a bookstore in the middle of nowhere.

I tried to call Cleo again, but I had no signal.

(she shudders.)

I went in, against my better judgement, and it seemed cosy, considering me and Joel seemed to be the only people in the building. He asked what kind of books Cleo was into, and I knew she liked Greek mythology stuff, so we tried to find stuff like that.

But... we found this book.

[BOOK SLIDING]

"The Curse of the Wolf" by S.K. Mann.

We'd already found a book Cleo would've been interested in, but Joel insisted on getting this, too.

We miraculously made it to the diner on time, even though I'm certain we spent 3 hours in "Secretkeepers". The dinner went well, but Joel just kept looking... more like Jimmy did. I offered to drive us home then, and he accepted. He read the book all the way through while in the car.

I just don't know what to think!

[SCOTT]
Neither do I.

Tell you what, why don't I have Scar make a photocopy of this old thing? That way you can keep the real thing, but we can have the pages for storage.

[LIZZIE]
Thank you.

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[SCOTT]
As much as I would love to read and decipher what this lost piece of S.K. Mann media could hold for our institute, but I have a job to do.

According to Martyn, Secret Keeper books did exist, but it burned down in 1991 due to an electrical failure. Apparently it was the first place he worked at.

As for the book, a review on goodreads describes it as "A take on the werewolf genre never before seen in literature." That's about all the information I can find of it, other than people thinking they made it up on reddit.

What confuses me is that it sounds like the book itself has nothing to do with Joel's condition. If he was acting like that before he even got his hands on the book, and Lizzie believes he looked similar to the way Jimmy did in the hunting trip statement- I think she may have more connection to the curse than she realises.

Recording ends.

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