A Letter from the Past

I received a package in the mail today.
It was addressed to me, from an old friend of mine.
Probably wouldn't be that much of a deal, if it weren't for two things.
One. What was in the package.
Two. My friend went missing nearly two years ago.
Not left without a word. Missing. As in, his parents don't know what happened to him, the cops don't know what happened to him, even his friends don't know what happened. A lot of the other guys figured he just ran away from home. I kinda thought that, too. I mean, guy's girlfriend gets mauled and eaten by some wolf, guy might just want to walk out the door and keep walking.
But I get this package full of audio tapes, and I begin to wonder. I get these letters, one from my friend the other from I don't know who, and I begin to wonder. I get this journal, full of dates and scribbling, and I begin to wonder.
You see, my friend had this habit of recording everything on this little handheld tapedeck he carried with him everywhere. Me and some of the other guys tried to tell him to turn to digital, but he wouldn't listen. He said the sound wasn't the same. So he carried this tapedeck around with him and recorded everything. Conversations, lectures, the radio, everything. I know for a fact that he kept a personal diary, too. I asked him if I could listen to some of them. Not the diaries, those are personal, but some of the other stuff. Just curious. He got real quiet. He said no, but he told me that I could try recording some of my own. He handed me this extra tapedeck he had and said I could borrow it for a while. To see if I liked it.
I think the damn things are still in my closet somewhere. I'll have to dig them out now, I guess.
Why? Well, mostly because of the letters.
The one from my friend is probably the better one. It was nice seeing something from him again.


Hey man, long time no see. Sorry to have cheesed it like that, but some weird shit was going down and I had to get outta there. It's been a long time and a long journey travelled, and a lot has happened, but I got every bit of it down on my tapes. Hell, those things are probably the only thing that kept me from going nuts for this long. But all this shit's wearing me thin, I was starting to think I wouldn't make it. Then this man approaches me, tells me he represents a group who try and help people like me. Poeple who've been on the run from weird shit. He made some weird speech about experiments and psychokinetic mumbo jumbo. Probably bullshit, but hey, I've seen and heard weirder. Anyway, to cut a long story short, this man told me to choose someone I trust and appoint them as my scribe. He tells me that I should take all my tapes and send them to the scribe, have him write them down, put them to paper. He said that might keep the Madness at bay a little bit longer. Well, there's noone I trust more than you, man. So I packed up the tapes I still had from all the shit, at least, the ones up to just before I left, and gave them to the man. The man even had a few that I had lost (a little weird, but hey, stranger things, right?) There were actually quite a bit of them, so I took some time and went through them, marking the important ones and writing them down in a little notebook. Then I took some time and wrote this letter to you. Well, I've actually written like, seven letters, but most of them are in the wastebasket, so I don't think they count. Anyway, I'm giving the tapes and the notebook and this letter to the man, and he says he'll take care of the rest. I hope he does. Those tapes are, quite literally, my life. I trust you with them, but him, not so much.
Alright, almost outta paper, getting late, gotta finish. Follow the notebook, Be thorough (not sure if I have to tell you that, you were the better note taker), Listen to these Testament people. I may not really trust them, but they seem to know what they're doing.
Also, no names. The man mentioned the internet, and I'd prefer people not knowing our names and stuff.
Be in touch, man,
R-----


He's right, I was always took better notes them him. I just wasn't the better talker. I flipped through the notebook. A lot of dates, a lot of doodles, a lot of loose paper, and a lot of little, colored stickies. It looks like there are maybe 20 or 25 different colors, some of them only subtly different from others. His binders and notebooks during school were the same. No rhyme or reason, yet he seemed to know how to find what he needed. The tapes probably helped, but I think the stickies were the real hint. Somehow he managed to understand that crazy system of his and work with it. Hopefully I will, too.
The second letter was from this group R----- mentioned. Testament.


Dear Mr. D-------,
Your dearest friend, Mr. J------, has selected you to act as his Scribe in an ongoing experiment of ours. The experiment involves the involvement of certain unnatural beings, known to us as the Phobic and the Carnal, with human individuals, the effects of that involvement on those individuals' minds, and the manners in which the individuals attempt to cope with that effect.
You see Mr. D-------, the human mind is a very malleable thing, but even the most malleable of things can snap given the right amount of force. The Phobic and the Carnal seem to exert this force on humans. Some men experience this force and go mad within moments, if they are not killed on the spot. Others go years on the run, surviving on the very edge. Sooner or later, however, they are brought down by one of two things; Death or Madness. It is only inevitable.
Our research seeks to prevent the latter of the two for as long as possible. Our studies have shown that recording the experience in some manner seems to dissipate this force. Different manners of recording seem to dissipate more force. Audio and Visual recording seem to be the weakest of the manners. This is followed by paper recording; Journals and Diaries. Interestingly enough our studies show that the most effective manner seems to be recording it on the World Wide Web. We are not entirely sure as to why, though we suspect it may be related to the fact that these records are much more of a shared experience, causing the force to be dissipated further.
As such, we have sought many on the run from the Phobic and the Carnal, many who have recorded their experiences in the lesser forms, and urge them to take part in an experiment. In this experiment, we attempt to dissipate the force as far as possible, and observe the effect it has. We seperate the act of recording into two areas. The Runner, in this case, your friend Mr. J------, and the Scribe, in this case you, Mr. D-------. The Runner takes the brunt of the force and records it in one of the lesser forms. We take those records and pass them onto the Scribe, who records them on a provided website. The following account will be where you record Mr. J------'s audio journals. We have provided you with an alias Mr. J------ says you will find to your liking.

Username: PerpetualFriday

Password: **********

We recommend that you change your password as soon as you log in. We trust you to follow our instructions to the letter. Thank you for your cooperation.

Yours Truly,

Testament

They are certainly polite, but I will say this. I'm not doing this for Testament. I'm doing this for R-----.

This is a pretty big box, and there are a lot of tapes in here. The first entry of the journal R----- sent me is labelled “Not Really Camping.” There's a red sticky on it. The tapes are all labelled, but none of the ones near the top of the package are labelled that. I'm going to try and dig through them all and find the one I need.

R-----, I don't know where you are or what you got into, but if you're reading this, stay safe, alright?