Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween Penance, a co production of iHeart
Speaker 1: three D Audio Blumhouse Television and Grim and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Yankee. Headphones recommended. Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: Were there steps there before? Okay?
Speaker 3: So if the chapel's down there, I know I saw
Speaker 3: somewhere around here, not here, not there.
Speaker 4: Not there either, crazy, This place makes no sense.
Speaker 5: I know that's somewhere in this nonsense nightmare labyrinth.
Speaker 6: I saw a.
Speaker 5: Lovely, little, good for nothing goddamn library.
Speaker 2: It's so dark in here.
Speaker 5: I wonder if they're hello, hello, ship.
Speaker 6: Your voice down, but there's nobody in here? Are you
Speaker 6: the librarian?
Speaker 2: Mira?
Speaker 3: Mira? Hi?
Speaker 6: Do you have resources for UH residents?
Speaker 2: Be more specific, like legal.
Speaker 6: Guides, case law.
Speaker 5: It would be great to cross reference everything by false imprisonment. Also,
Speaker 5: anything you have about.
Speaker 6: This building, where it is and who's running it. Are
Speaker 6: we allowed to check out the books or do we
Speaker 6: have to read them here? This is just so dark.
Speaker 6: I'm not sure we.
Speaker 7: Don't have anything like that, which part none of it?
Speaker 2: Maybe in the law library.
Speaker 6: Where's that?
Speaker 2: Not here? What are you really looking for?
Speaker 6: UH?
Speaker 5: Answers answers about my case, your case, and what is
Speaker 5: your case? Well, I don't know exactly, but when they
Speaker 5: brought me in and read me my file, half the
Speaker 5: information was.
Speaker 6: Wrong, including my name. They arrested the wrong person. But
Speaker 6: I can't seem to convince anyone or even get them
Speaker 6: to tell me the reason. And I don't know how
Speaker 6: to prove it.
Speaker 7: Can't seem to convince anyone. You know, it doesn't matter
Speaker 7: if you prove it. Whatever it is you're trying to prove, no.
Speaker 2: One is going to believe you. No one. In the end.
Speaker 7: You're not even going to believe yourself.
Speaker 5: But I don't belong here, you and I both, So
Speaker 5: are you gonna help me or not.
Speaker 7: Follow me?
Speaker 6: Why is it so dark in here?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 2: That is bad for old books? It degrades them?
Speaker 6: Is that really true?
Speaker 2: Also? I'm sensitive to light here?
Speaker 6: What does it say Those Without Shadow? Published eighteen eighty three.
Speaker 6: What's this got to do with me?
Speaker 2: Take these two?
Speaker 5: The other self as an omen of death? The mirrorers?
Speaker 5: What are these?
Speaker 2: You said there was another you, the one that really
Speaker 2: belongs here.
Speaker 6: No, that's not what I never said.
Speaker 2: The same thing happened to me. There's someone out there
Speaker 2: that looks just like me.
Speaker 7: Sounds just like me has my memories, lives, my life.
Speaker 2: She took everything from me.
Speaker 7: When I first got here, I looked up everything I
Speaker 7: could about my case.
Speaker 2: I can tell you your answers are here, but your
Speaker 2: solution is not. I understand.
Speaker 7: I understand everything now, but it doesn't change the fact that.
Speaker 2: I'm in here and she's out there.
Speaker 6: What happened?
Speaker 2: What does it matter? You won't believe me.
Speaker 5: Listen, If it's anything like what's happening to me, maybe
Speaker 5: we can help each other find a way to prove
Speaker 5: that neither of us should be here.
Speaker 7: Hah, you remind me of me in the early days,
Speaker 7: the differences. I had already met her, Ah, just like
Speaker 7: every other day. I was waiting on the train. It
Speaker 7: was cold, raining, the train was running late. I think
Speaker 7: about that a lot if it hadn't been running late.
Speaker 7: But no, it wouldn't have mattered. I was being hunted
Speaker 7: when I first saw.
Speaker 2: Her across the platform.
Speaker 7: For a moment, I thought it was my own reflection
Speaker 7: mirrored in the window glass, Only it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't quite right.
Speaker 7: Her eyes were shining like an animal in the darkness.
Speaker 7: We got on the same train car. I tried to
Speaker 7: stare without making it obvious, but there was something about
Speaker 7: her that I couldn't quite make out, like a mirage
Speaker 7: when you get too close. I tried to look at
Speaker 7: her straight on. My eyes slid off like water. Then
Speaker 7: she walked towards me. Her attention made my palm sweat,
Speaker 7: my heart race. I thought it was attraction. Now I
Speaker 7: wonder if it was some instinct picking up on a predator.
Speaker 7: I don't remember who spoke first, but when we started talking,
Speaker 7: it seemed like it would never stop.
Speaker 2: She said her name was Jade, Jade like her emerald eyes.
Speaker 2: Her voice was intriguing, strange, constantly making adjustment sleek.
Speaker 7: She'd say false, false, false, that's FA's what they say.
Speaker 7: But opposites attracting You and I are a lot alike may.
Speaker 7: I liked her voice, I liked her looked.
Speaker 2: Her so much. I missed my stuff.
Speaker 7: I thought it was a sweet story, the story of
Speaker 7: how we met, But it was fault. We decided to
Speaker 7: start dating on the spot. Maybe a little fast, definitely
Speaker 7: too fast. Things had started like a story book, I
Speaker 7: guess I got swept up in the idea of it.
Speaker 7: I didn't tell anyone at first. I didn't want to
Speaker 7: deal with their questions. They were always pushing. You know.
Speaker 7: They never approved of anything I did. They they yes,
Speaker 7: my family, my mother. Especially At first, our relationship was perfect.
Speaker 7: We were so happy. Jade listened, you know. She wanted
Speaker 7: to know everything about me, wanted to share everything with me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, tell me again again again.
Speaker 7: Other than pictures, she was shy about pictures.
Speaker 2: Hold on, let me just gee, No, you're going to
Speaker 2: ruin them.
Speaker 7: We never fought. We were always in the mood for
Speaker 7: the exact same thing. Whenever I was trying to remember something,
Speaker 7: she had the answer.
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 7: When we played games together, she always anticipated my next
Speaker 7: move as though she was reading my mind.
Speaker 4: You she did.
Speaker 7: She devoted all of her attention to me, laughed when
Speaker 7: I laughed, smiled when I smiled, and she'd get this
Speaker 7: look in her eye when she touched me.
Speaker 2: I love you, I love you.
Speaker 7: Sometimes when you're in love with someone, it's easy to
Speaker 7: ignore the morning signs. But there were things with Jade
Speaker 7: I just couldn't overlook. I'd wake up and she'd be
Speaker 7: staring at me, good morning, good morning. She'd repeat things
Speaker 7: I'd say multiple times, changing the tenor and tone until
Speaker 7: she got it just right?
Speaker 2: Say it again?
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 7: Because I like your voice at them?
Speaker 2: Could you pass me that book? Eh?
Speaker 8: Could you pass me that book? Could you please pass
Speaker 8: me that book? Could you please pass me that book?
Speaker 8: Could you please pass me that book?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 6: Here?
Speaker 7: One of the only things we didn't agree on was food.
Speaker 7: She never seemed to think anything I could was rich enough.
Speaker 9: I doused salads and dressings, dredged vegetables and butter, drown
Speaker 9: her dinner in oil and melted cheese and gravy, and she'd.
Speaker 2: Just push it around her plate.
Speaker 7: The meat, though, she'd devour the tendons, the fat, cartilage,
Speaker 7: the marrow. She didn't care what kind of meat. Only
Speaker 7: the rarer the better, I'd joke. Her teeth were like
Speaker 7: a tiger's. By then she was practically living with me.
Speaker 7: Even scraps and leftovers weren't safe. Sometimes I'd wander into
Speaker 7: the kitchen at night to find Jade digging through the trash,
Speaker 7: or with the refrigerator door wide open, smiling at me
Speaker 7: with meat and her teeth, eyes shining like the day
Speaker 7: we met. It would be hard to say exactly when
Speaker 7: things escalated. Jade was like my shadow. When I would
Speaker 7: turn around there. She was always smiling. I had to
Speaker 7: fight to find any time alone.
Speaker 2: Ah ha, you scared me, you scared me.
Speaker 7: If I managed to catch her unawares, usually i'd find
Speaker 7: her practicing things that people don't normally practice, staring into space,
Speaker 7: shifting her face, trying on different types of smiles, using
Speaker 7: her fingers to adjust.
Speaker 2: The corners of her mouth, but never in front of
Speaker 2: the mirror.
Speaker 7: I'd hear her repeating things I'd said over and over,
Speaker 7: shifting intonation and cadence.
Speaker 2: You scared me, you scared me, You scared me, You
Speaker 2: scare me, You scared me.
Speaker 7: She'd audition different laughs, too small and polite, big and boisterous,
Speaker 7: others I don't know. Sometimes I would look at Jade
Speaker 7: and she would just be someone else, like there were
Speaker 7: pieces of her that changed. I swear when I met her,
Speaker 7: her eyes had been green, but now they were brown
Speaker 7: like mine.
Speaker 2: I felt like I was losing my mind.
Speaker 6: Your eyes aren't brown, they're green.
Speaker 7: Oh, yes, of course they are. I get it mixed up.
Speaker 2: Sometimes.
Speaker 7: Haven't been able to stomach seeing my reflection for a while.
Speaker 7: Around the same time my health started to deteriorate. I
Speaker 7: woke up one morning choking on my own tooth, another
Speaker 7: with clumps of hair, missing, nails ripped off, scratches and bruises.
Speaker 2: Appeared out of nowhere.
Speaker 7: I visited one doctor after another. No one could tell
Speaker 7: me what was wrong with me. But I'd have these dreams,
Speaker 7: dreams where I was staring at Jade, but she was
Speaker 7: wearing a mask, a mask to look like me.
Speaker 2: I'd reach up to pull the mask off, but it
Speaker 2: would tear.
Speaker 9: I dig my nails in, clawing it away in shreds, and.
Speaker 2: When the final piece.
Speaker 7: Came off, behind all of it, there was emptiness, a
Speaker 7: blank face, but it would smile Jade, smile my smile, and.
Speaker 9: There she'd be, blank, smiling.
Speaker 2: I was wasting away.
Speaker 7: I didn't even recognize myself in the mirror, and I
Speaker 7: was having trouble keeping things straight, like my memory was
Speaker 7: being drained Jade, though Jade was glowing coming into focus.
Speaker 7: One day, lying in bed, sick to my stomach, I
Speaker 7: heard this sound from the other room, chop, chop chop.
Speaker 7: I tried to ignore it, but it was insistent, giving
Speaker 7: me such a headache.
Speaker 9: This chop chop chop, Can you stop?
Speaker 4: Jade?
Speaker 7: Jade was in the kitchen cutting carrots are too many
Speaker 7: for any recipe, especially when she didn't even eat carrots
Speaker 7: and she was still cutting the knife slid through like butter,
Speaker 7: so close to her fingers.
Speaker 6: That's enough.
Speaker 10: Can you stop, Jade? Please stop? I swear, I swear.
Speaker 10: She chopped her finger clean off. I screamed and screamed,
Speaker 10: but she just smiled that damn smile.
Speaker 2: I must have passed out.
Speaker 7: When I woke up, she had laid me in bed,
Speaker 7: got a nice back on my head where I had
Speaker 7: bumped it, and her finger was back like it had
Speaker 7: never happened.
Speaker 2: But I know what I saw.
Speaker 6: Are you sure that wasn't also a dream?
Speaker 2: I know what I saw, all right. Then one day
Speaker 2: I overheard Jade on the phone.
Speaker 7: Sorry, it's been so long, I've just been so busy.
Speaker 7: She was talking to my mom, pretending to be me.
Speaker 7: I know I say that every time, but I'm trying
Speaker 7: to do better.
Speaker 2: She sounded just like me. But yes, happy.
Speaker 7: I was never happy talking to my mom. Mom was
Speaker 7: never happy.
Speaker 2: Talking to me.
Speaker 7: Yes, I will, I love you.
Speaker 2: I miss you.
Speaker 7: Mom used to say in a thousand years, there would
Speaker 7: never be someone like me that she could never love
Speaker 7: anyone the way she loved me. But that was a lie,
Speaker 7: just like everything else I know.
Speaker 9: I remember, Oh, Mom, you always say that.
Speaker 7: She'd said things on that call that she couldn't have that.
Speaker 7: I never told her, I know what I you hadn't
Speaker 7: How how.
Speaker 2: Did she know me?
Speaker 6: Hey, let go on my arm.
Speaker 4: You're hurting me.
Speaker 10: The lights off?
Speaker 4: Turn them off?
Speaker 9: What was that?
Speaker 4: What was that? Yeah?
Speaker 6: What the hell was that?
Speaker 7: I guess I just got carried away, carried away.
Speaker 2: Since all this happened, I've.
Speaker 7: I've become unwell. I I don't like people seeing me
Speaker 7: clearly anymore. Now that something out there is wearing my face.
Speaker 9: My face feels.
Speaker 2: Wrong, like it's not mine anymore.
Speaker 6: I don't understand. How did you end up here?
Speaker 2: I killed my mother? Mmm? I don't look at me
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 7: It was that things. It eroded my trust in everyone.
Speaker 7: If she it could pretend to be me, convince everyone
Speaker 7: else it was me, maybe it could be other people too,
Speaker 7: isolating me more and more, wearing the mask of everyone
Speaker 7: in my life.
Speaker 6: That's what they do, what they do?
Speaker 2: Are you mocking me?
Speaker 7: So you thought your mother was Yeah, I heard this sound, thunk, dunk, dunk.
Speaker 2: I thought it was Jade.
Speaker 7: I went into the kitchen to get her to stop.
Speaker 2: But it was my mother.
Speaker 7: Standing at the counter as if she'd been invited, wearing
Speaker 7: an apron, using a meat tenderizer to pound these flank stakes.
Speaker 2: One of Jade's favorites.
Speaker 7: She seemed confused while I was there, almost like she
Speaker 7: didn't recognize me, and Jade was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 7: Nothing about that made sense, I thought, put this beech
Speaker 7: Shade masquerading as my mother.
Speaker 2: I confronted her.
Speaker 9: Tried to get her to show her true face.
Speaker 2: But she pushed.
Speaker 7: I told you how she always pushed, so I pushed
Speaker 7: back hard. I'll never forget the sounder's skull made when
Speaker 7: it cracked on the counter.
Speaker 2: I didn't move.
Speaker 7: I just stared at her body with a trickle of
Speaker 7: blood on the tile. And when I looked up, Jade
Speaker 7: was there, standing over my mother's dead body, smiling inhuman.
Speaker 7: For a moment, a horrible, sickening moment, I actually believed
Speaker 7: that she was me and I was the reflection the shadow.
Speaker 7: Then I grabbed the hammer from the counter and I
Speaker 7: swung it up her face. Blood spattered teeth skittered across
Speaker 7: the floor, skin hung from the hammer and shreds.
Speaker 9: Shade didn't move I just stared at me.
Speaker 10: I swung again and again, determined to unearth the true
Speaker 10: face beneath. I didn't stop until I saw the phone,
Speaker 10: But she didn't move, didn't react.
Speaker 7: The way she looked at me, I felt almost hypnotized.
Speaker 2: I dropped the hammer and she laughed.
Speaker 7: Under all the core I'd made of her face, of
Speaker 7: my face, it was still my laugh. I tried to
Speaker 7: ask her why, what had she wanted from all this
Speaker 7: from me? But she just smiled, and the words came
Speaker 7: spilling out of my mouth. Was it because I didn't
Speaker 7: appreciate my life, didn't deserve it? Was it because she
Speaker 7: could do it better, be a better version, or was
Speaker 7: it just a matter of survival or.
Speaker 2: That she was hungry?
Speaker 7: She didn't answer, only smiled that blank, empty smile. I
Speaker 7: think maybe she was just tired of being a shadow.
Speaker 7: She reached out tenderly to hold my hands, even though
Speaker 7: they were covered in blood. She leaned in as if
Speaker 7: to kiss them, and then bit my finger clean off. Suddenly,
Speaker 7: her whole face changed and kneaded back together, rippled and
Speaker 7: settled until it was mine and she lunched at me.
Speaker 7: I tried to run, to fight, but every move she
Speaker 7: mirrored as so she could anticipate my every thought, as
Speaker 7: though she.
Speaker 2: Was me, but so much stronger.
Speaker 7: She left me there, bleeding on the floor, not sure
Speaker 7: how long I laid there, but when they finally arrived,
Speaker 7: they arrested me.
Speaker 2: I told them what happened, but they didn't believe me.
Speaker 7: A woman with my name had already reported my mother's murder,
Speaker 7: alleging a stalker had been plotting to take over her life.
Speaker 7: I tried to tell them, tell them that she was
Speaker 7: the impostor, that it wasn't even human, but they wouldn't listen.
Speaker 7: And then I was carted off here and they tell
Speaker 7: me I'm not me.
Speaker 2: But I know it's not true. I know what happened.
Speaker 10: She's out there living my life and I'm still me.
Speaker 10: I'm me, and she cannot take that away from me.
Speaker 5: She bit off your finger? What, just like you said?
Speaker 5: You saw her cut off her own finger, But then
Speaker 5: it was back like it never happened. Yes, but you
Speaker 5: still have.
Speaker 10: I tell you that some monster out there took my life,
Speaker 10: that one probably took yours too, And you want to.
Speaker 2: Know about my fingers?
Speaker 6: Yes, you don't believe me either. I knew you wouldn't
Speaker 6: I'm not saying that.
Speaker 7: At a certain point, what does it even matter? People
Speaker 7: seem perfectly content to accept the reflection. Maybe she has
Speaker 7: the better version. I killed my mother, and she would
Speaker 7: to the funeral. She has my looks, my voice, my memories.
Speaker 7: She may as well be me, and.
Speaker 2: I'm the shadow.
Speaker 7: I avoid my own reflection now because all I see
Speaker 7: is her fantasies about ripping off my skin and what
Speaker 7: I'll find underneath. I can't trust anyone anymore. I'll probably
Speaker 7: die here and no one will even know or care.
Speaker 2: While she thrives, I'll die a shadow.
Speaker 7: As for your double, I warn you, the more you
Speaker 7: look into this, the more your mistrust will grow in
Speaker 7: who you are what you are. So maybe it's in
Speaker 7: your best interest to let it go, or one day
Speaker 7: you won't recognize what you see.
Speaker 2: In the mirror.
Speaker 5: Well that's the last time I'll be visiting our local library.
Speaker 6: But wait, how do I TV room? Okay?
Speaker 5: Wait room, art room?
Speaker 3: Shit?
Speaker 7: Library?
Speaker 6: Okay? This should be the cell block, and of course
Speaker 6: it's not.
Speaker 4: A I hate this fucking place.
Speaker 11: Trouble.
Speaker 6: Oh hi, I was you know, just walking back to
Speaker 6: my room.
Speaker 11: I can show you if you don't mind waiting.
Speaker 6: What is this place?
Speaker 11: Space to get away? Cigarette?
Speaker 6: Wow? You can smoke in here?
Speaker 11: I do.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's so good.
Speaker 11: It's easier to enjoy life simple pleasures when they're few
Speaker 11: and far between. What's the book?
Speaker 6: Ah, something from the library? The mirrors? A secret History
Speaker 6: of the Life of Doubles.
Speaker 11: Let me guess Jade gave you that?
Speaker 6: You mean, Mirah?
Speaker 11: What's the difference.
Speaker 6: When they brought me in you know in my file
Speaker 6: they had me under the wrong name.
Speaker 11: Yeah, you've told me clerical era.
Speaker 5: Well that's what I thought. But I'm starting to wonder,
Speaker 5: wonder what if it could be more than that. I
Speaker 5: figured it was all some big mistake. It is a senseless,
Speaker 5: life destroying, devastating mistake. But why what's behind it? Could
Speaker 5: there really be someone out there impersonating me?
Speaker 6: Or I don't even know?
Speaker 11: Most people think the hottest part of a flame is blue,
Speaker 11: but it's not. There's a non luminous veil around the fire.
Speaker 11: That's all most invisible. Look right there, don't turn your
Speaker 11: eyes away, don't blink. What do you see? Nothing even
Speaker 11: though you know something's there?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, sorry, Am I missing something I don't know?
Speaker 11: Probably not? Seems like your experience is consistent with most
Speaker 11: everyone else.
Speaker 2: Do you see something else?
Speaker 11: At first I wasn't sure. Seemed like a trick of
Speaker 11: the light, the product of an overactive imagination that it
Speaker 11: was gesturing, beckoning, making faces at me. But the more
Speaker 11: I looked, the cleverer things God, the more familiar the
Speaker 11: face became. Took me a long time to realize, but
Speaker 11: once I saw it, I couldn't not see it. It
Speaker 11: was my face. It always had been.
Speaker 6: FRep You are tripping me out, man? Is this an
Speaker 6: allegory for something? Did the doctor slip you some of that?
Speaker 6: I own a god drug shit.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 11: The day I graduated high school, I enlisted.
Speaker 6: You were in the military, Navy South Pacific.
Speaker 11: All I'd bring back was a sun tan, these faded tattoos,
Speaker 11: and a shoe box full of snapshots. But I learned
Speaker 11: something out there, something few other people knew about, especially
Speaker 11: in those days, what nuclear energy. By the early seventies,
Speaker 11: I was the peak of my career, sought after for
Speaker 11: whatever was the biggest new project on the market. My
Speaker 11: last job was let's just say we were adjacent to
Speaker 11: big city millions within the EPZ. I was the plant's
Speaker 11: chief operator, EPZ the fallout zone. The thing with nuclear
Speaker 11: is how it's regulated. It's not like all infrastructure. There's
Speaker 11: big money to be spent, big money to be made.
Speaker 11: The oversight committees that were ostensibly set up to keep
Speaker 11: tabs on us cronies of the power company in their pockets,
Speaker 11: every one of them. Anyway, One day I'm in the plant,
Speaker 11: I'm the control room floor, and there's an anomaly, an anomaly,
Speaker 11: a problem in our second reactor. For some reason, it's
Speaker 11: struggling to dissipate heat quickly enough. There's something that occurs
Speaker 11: in those reactors called a scram. It's a shutdown, happens
Speaker 11: in seconds. I initiated it.
Speaker 6: What was the problem hard to say.
Speaker 11: My suspicion is that somebody cut corners and the concentration
Speaker 11: of boron was too low, But the data didn't add up. Normally,
Speaker 11: after a scram, there's some decay heat and it has
Speaker 11: to be regulated. But this was more than normal, like
Speaker 11: five times more. Even if the rods were bad. It
Speaker 11: made no sense. Regardless, we needed time to assess. We
Speaker 11: could keep the first reactor online while we repaired the second.
Speaker 11: But half the reactors means half the power. But the
Speaker 11: board accused me of overreacting, and so they did it
Speaker 11: their way, got a technician to short the alarm and
Speaker 11: create a bypass on the control board to suppress the error.
Speaker 6: Sounds about right.
Speaker 11: You want to know how many contamination events the world
Speaker 11: has seen?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so do I.
Speaker 11: Someone here probably knows, and I can tell you it's
Speaker 11: more than just three.
Speaker 6: Mile Island, Fukushima, Chernobyl.
Speaker 11: Sellafield, Gray's Wall, Frenchtown, like Homing. The number of times
Speaker 11: we've come face to face with disastrous staggering, and almost
Speaker 11: always it was due to someone's greed. A month after
Speaker 11: the anomaly occurred, we were given a work order to
Speaker 11: stall an experimental new condenser, told it would increase power
Speaker 11: output in additional two point two percent. I knew the
Speaker 11: system was unstable. I knew we didn't know enough to
Speaker 11: go toying with untested tech. But I had seen the
Speaker 11: guys who stood in the way of progress, and I
Speaker 11: was thinking about my career, my pension, my legacy, my
Speaker 11: own greed. So we got the condenser in line and
Speaker 11: turn the system on. Piece by piece, water is led
Speaker 11: into the containment building. Steamlines are clear, turbines are moving free,
Speaker 11: all systems are go, So we dropped the control rods
Speaker 11: and introduced the beryllium and boloonium. Immediate alpha decay from
Speaker 11: the polonium hits the beryllium. Beryllium releases neutrons. Neutrons hit
Speaker 11: the uranium, and we've got vision. And that's when it happens.
Speaker 11: The anomaly.
Speaker 6: It's back.
Speaker 11: It never left, but now it's worse, so much worse.
Speaker 11: Every panel of the control room lit up all at once.
Speaker 11: We couldn't know if we could trust what we were seeing.
Speaker 11: After they'd fucked around with the alarm, and I was
Speaker 11: certain we were approaching a criticality failure. The RHR flooded
Speaker 11: the containment with extra coolant, ramped up the vent fans,
Speaker 11: had the new condenser, removing a ton of heat, but
Speaker 11: to no avail. I tried to scram the reactor again,
Speaker 11: but something was wrong. Half the control rods didn't move,
Speaker 11: Something was stuck. Someone would have to go down there.
Speaker 11: You me and a technician name of Harry Marx, twenty
Speaker 11: year veteran, best in the biz. There was no time
Speaker 11: to lose, so we suited up and headed into the
Speaker 11: containment structure. Our handheld Geiger counters were saturated and said
Speaker 11: it's completely useless. We could make it fifteen minutes at
Speaker 11: the absolute maximum, even with the suits. One minute too
Speaker 11: long was a death sentence. Harry went to work on
Speaker 11: the RHR unit, making sure it was functioning at full capacity.
Speaker 11: I had to deal with a control rod mechanism near
Speaker 11: the side of the suppression pool tank. Through the window
Speaker 11: of my hazmat, I looked into that abyss and saw
Speaker 11: something I shouldn't have. As if my eyes could make
Speaker 11: out the microscopic the heavens and the full electromagnetic spectrum
Speaker 11: in between. The atom split, the energy surged, and in
Speaker 11: the heat, the gesture, the beckoning, the face, my face.
Speaker 11: I was in there. I had always been there, but
Speaker 11: this time, for the first time, I was seeing myself
Speaker 11: not from the outside in, but inside out. I had
Speaker 11: been trapped all this time. I had been trapped inside
Speaker 11: and now finally I could set myself free. I needed
Speaker 11: to be free. As I saw it in the moment,
Speaker 11: I had no other option.
Speaker 8: What what are you doing?
Speaker 11: Five seats That was my exposure. I should have been dead,
Speaker 11: Burns all over my body, scarring in my lungs. Harry
Speaker 11: was not so lucky. They escorted him out in a
Speaker 11: lead body bag and I was hauled away. Here. I
Speaker 11: spend the rest of eternity reflecting on what I had
Speaker 11: done and what I had said.
Speaker 6: But was there a breach? Did it contaminate the area?
Speaker 11: I wouldn't know. I've been cut off from the outside
Speaker 11: world ever since. But if you ever heard about it
Speaker 11: in the news, I'd say they contained it or covered
Speaker 11: it up. My point is none of us really know
Speaker 11: what we are capable of when we are faced with
Speaker 11: something extraordinary. I know there is more than one of me.
Speaker 11: I believe there are reflections of all of us, and
Speaker 11: if you find one, when those mirror images meet, the
Speaker 11: results can be devastating. So you tell me you're wondering
Speaker 11: if you have a double running around. That's what you're thinking,
Speaker 11: isn't it. Maybe I'm saying they may be closer than
Speaker 11: you think. The smarter, safer decision don't look at all.
Speaker 6: Oh yea, I I'm sick.
Speaker 1: Thirteen Days of Halloween penance starring Natalie Morales, Episode six
Speaker 1: Defense written by Annie Reese, Alexander Williams, and Matthew Riddle.
Speaker 1: Editing and sound design by Rima Ilkali, featuring the voices
Speaker 1: of Rachel Rosenbloom, Wilber Fitzgerald and Wayne Bastra. Directed by
Speaker 1: Alexander Williams. Executive producers Aaron Mankey, Noah Feinberg, Chris Dicky,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alexander Williams. Supervising producers Trevor Young and
Speaker 1: Josh Thain. Producers Jesse funk, Rima Ilkali, Noami Griffin, Chandler
Speaker 1: Mays and Casby Bias. Script editing by Lauren Vogelbaum. Story
Speaker 1: consultants Ben Bolan and Matthew Riddle. Casting by Sunday Bowling
Speaker 1: CSA and Meg Mormon CSA. Production coordinator Wayna Calderon. Production
Speaker 1: assistants Jenna Johnson and Winona Lowe. Theme music by Rose
Speaker 1: Aserti with vocals by Anna Humbler, recorded at This Is
Speaker 1: Sound Design Studios in Burbank, California. Engineered by Ross aeronos
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Romelia Osorio, Nathan Rule, Glenn Nishida, and
Speaker 1: Rob Mosca. Thirteen Days of Halloween was created by Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick and Alexander Williams and is a production of iHeart Podcasts,
Speaker 1: Blumhouse Television, and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Makey. Learn
Speaker 1: more about the show at Grimm and Slash thirteen days
Speaker 1: and find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween,