Your heart pounds to the beat of your footsteps on the rain slicked pavement.

It's so dark out here, you think in hysterical terror, It's so dark out here.

It's a moonless night. Or maybe it isn't, but with rain heavy clouds covering the sky you can't tell either way. But it's so dark, and that's all that it needs really, to chase after you in the silent streets of the night.

That's all the Dark needs, you think, it just needs me right here, alone.

And it has you.

Well, almost. You scramble into an alley and almost slip on the slick pavement. Behind you, you hear the lightless beast as it slams into a wall and lets out a rumbling growl, low and tenuous.

You make the mistake of looking back. Two red pinprick eyes lock onto yours as the beast shakes itself and growls again, its black shagged fur bleeding into the dark of the night. Its claws scrape against the ground as it tenses and lunges.

It catches you by your leg, dragging you down with a scream from your lips. Your breathing is through sobs as you desperately try to pull yourself forward and out from under it, but all that does is make the creature dig its claws harder into your leg. It looms over you wicked and triumphant. Saliva drips onto the back of your neck as it catches you on your back with its other paw.

You're a fumbling, weak-willed thing as your hand flails forward desperately and catches against something metallic. You grab on, pulling whatever it is towards you as hard as you can, watching as trashcan crashes into the creature's side and makes it stumble sideways. The weight on you staggers for one crucial second, a second you use to scramble out from underneath the creature and to your feet, almost tripping again as you pull yourself to the end of the alley way and around the next corner.

Straight into a well-lit market place.

It's a night market, lit by fairy lights as people move from stall to stall and enjoy themselves with their friends. A family stands at a stall from across you, where the mother indulges her two older children as the father keeps the baby amused. People walk past you, unseeing and avoiding you almost as it they know you don't belong.

Or maybe it's that you look like a right mess.

Your leg burns with something fierce as you lean heavily against the wall. When you look down, you see that it's a bloody mess, the fabric twisting around the injury half torn and shredded. You wince as you shift, carefully balanced on one leg as you fumble around in your pocket for your phone.

The last time you checked it, when you were standing under the lone light of a bus stand, it'd had no signal, which had been when the street lights had blown out one by one and you'd realized you were in grave danger. Now, it's working again, and you quickly call for a cab as you try to hobble inconspicuously to somewhere less populated but no less dim.

It's only when you're in the backseat, five minutes into a ride straight to the hospital, that the tears finally come. You rub furiously at them, not quite unaware of the terrified glances the driver keeps shooting you. It's a miracle and a half as it is that you even managed to convince him to let you in with your leg bleeding everywhere.

You know you make quite an image, bloody and beaten and so utterly pathetic like this.

I can't do this anymore, you think furiously, I can't keep living like this.

This wasn't the first time you had a monster chasing after you. You don't even remember how many times you've had to run for your life, now. You think you lost count somewhere after the fog came for you, stealing the warmth from your lungs and leaving you so so cold. It was only your furious belief that you'd still find a way somehow to get back home, that you finally came out of the Lonely after five whole days. Then there has been the man with hands that glowed poker hot, who'd smiled something mean at you and burned down the grocery store you used to work at.

Those are only just the last two encounters, before the Beast in the Dark. You don't want to remember the rest.

You'd like to think you don't know why this is happening to you. You'd like to pretend that you don't recognize the Fears exactly for what they are. You'd like to say that you have any idea about how to go back, go back to your own life and back to living in a world where the Fears weren't something all too real and were only concepts in a bloody podcast.

You want to go home. You don't want to live in this world where the Magnus Institute exists. You don't want to be here, amidst a world full of monsters that know you fear them.

And that's the problem, isn't it? That they know. They know that you're afraid of them, because you know they're real. That's why they keep coming after you, because you knowing they're real makes them real. They know where you are, where you live, and how terrified you are. And one day, you'll run out of near misses and pay with your life.

-

The Magnus Institute looms like something dreadful. You know well enough to know that you're not only imagining the feeling of being watched.

You take a deep breath and hold it, letting it out slowly while trying to build up the nerve to actually climb the steps of the Institute and go inside. You know what you need to do. You know that you might not get a chance to do it, if you wait too long.

You go inside.

At the reception you see a young woman working the desk, her brown hair pulled into a pony tail and her blue eyes fixed on the computer screen in front of her. Giddily, you think that this is your first brush with one of the mentioned characters in the podcast. Besides the Fears that have chased after your every step since you coming to this world, you haven't really met anyone you've recognized. Distantly, you think it's somewhat like seeing a celebrity, just a little bit.

"Um- excuse me?"

Rosie looks up from her computer screen and gives a you a patented customer service smile. "Hello. Welcome to Magnus Institute. How can I help you?"

"I'm- I'm actually here to give a statement?"

Rosie points to a door a little way down the hallway, tucked besides a staircase that goes to the upper floors, "You should find the Archives right there. If you go down the stairs, someone will be there to take your statement."

Slowly, your heart is starting to come down from its frantic war-drum beat in your chest. The feeling of being watched is as oppressive as ever, even more so standing in the lobby of the Institute, from where you can see a portrait of who you automatically assume to be Jonah Magnus behind Rosie. But- you're fine. You're fine. You aren't quite sure where exactly in the timeline you are in reference to canon, you never really paid attention to the dates when listening to the podcast (you can only wish you did) but it's fine. If Jon isn't in right now, then one of the others will probably take your statement, and you like to think you can probably drudge up enough evidence to at least make them listen.

You give Rosie a polite smile and say, "Thank you."

And then it all goes wrong.

Someone is coming down the stairs as you reach the door that leads down the Archives. You're absentmindedly wondering who you might end up giving your statement to, if you're lucky enough for it to be Martin who would at least listen to you even if he doesn't believe you. You think all this running around might be worth it if you get to at least meet Martin, possibly the only nice person in the podcast.

Your musing comes to an abrupt end when a familiar voice calls out from above you, from the stairs. "Ah, Mx (L/n), is it?"

You freeze. Your lungs stutter and the air gets stuck in your throat as pure, unadulterated fear pools in your gut. You recognize that voice. You wish you didn't recognize that voice.

You look up to meet the eyes of one Elias Bouchard.

He comes down the stair and greets you with an extended hand that you stare at blankly. Half of you has already checked out, the other half is drowning in dread. You don't know what to do. You don't know what to do.

"I must say, it's a pleasure to meet you."

You look back up at his eyes. They're cold. Everything about him screams danger, kicking up those shiny new instincts you've developed over months of running from the Dread Fears. You want to run. You want to cry.

You know it's useless.

"Why don't we head up to my office and have a little chat, hmmm?"

Unbidden, your voice sounds in a hoarse whisper, "I was just going down to make my statement."

Elias smiles something condescending, and you think it's a sick sort of pity that colors his eyes. You think it's the sort of pity a hunter would feel towards a trapped and bleeding prey, pity that the poor creature still hasn't stopped whimpering yet. "I'm sure you can do that afterwards, yes? Really, I won't take up too much of your time."

You give a tiny muted nod, and follow after him as he heads back upstairs to his office. Looks like you've run out of those near misses.