Journal of Dr. Adam Grimshaw

The following specified journal entries are authored by Dr. Adam Grimshaw . They detail the sequence of events within his employer, Metis Labs and his personal accounts of which follows regarding [REDACTED].

December 18th 2021

8:30 AM

Today is the big day, that's right, launch day! It's about time but I'm glad mission control has given the green light for blast off later this morning. They're making a big hullabaloo about this new rocket but I for one am more excited for our new eye in the sky. The James Webb telescope. Aye she's a thing of beauty, 100x more powerful than the Hubble. The veil of space and time will be lifted even further for us curious creatures. Our neighbours across the cosmos will be illuminated to an ever greater degree. To the layman, think of it as a guy who's nearly blind getting laser eye surgery. Anyway, off to get some pre-launch coffee.

2:00 PM

Happy days! Launch went off without a hitch. Some signs of inclement weather ahead but thankfully it missed the launch pad. Only thing to do now is sit and wait for the cargo to deploy and send us initial test images... In 6 months... Ugh... Oh well, plenty to get on with until then. I'm now off to get some post-launch cake. A rocket cake, shaped like a rocket, mmmmm...

February 20th 2022

9:00 AM

I got word that the director of Metis Labs, Dr. George Hakke has to take leave for health reasons. Rumours are circulating that it's cancer but it's purely speculation. He's been looking more rough around the edges lately. He's not an easy-going, stress-free man by any stretch but it was clear that something was taking a toll on him. We've been monitoring the journey of the telescope. It entered into orbit 1.5mil km behind earth at Lagrange point 2, right on schedule. Sunshield successfully deployed, second trajectory maneuver complete, telescope deployment, instrument activation and final insertion into L2 complete. NOTE TO SELF: retrieve my calculator from Steve in the Neutrino lab, and DON'T LEND HIM STUFF AGAIN!

4:30 PM

I got chatting with Steve, retrieved my calculator and in the process we agreed to have lunch together. He started filling me in on more of the gossip floating around the office. In the absence of the director, the deputy director has stepped in to run operations, Dr. Alastor Videl. That guy gives me the creeps, he looks like an alien wearing a human skinsuit. It's his

mannerisms, the way he talks using weird oldie style lingo and the dead cold stare he has, really gives me the willies.

April 18th 2022

9:30 AM

Telescope is well on it's way to bringing us those highly anticipated snaps of our cosmic neighbourhood. Initial optical alignment tests are looking good. Object lock and tracking is nominal, we will proceed with mirror alignment which will take a few months. Patience is truly a virtue in this field.

10:45 AM

I'm saddened by the recent news, as are the rest of the staff in the facility. Dr. Foster from the east wing labs radio observatory, was found dead in his office... Suicide. I wasn't overly friendly with the guy, we exchanged words every now and then but that was it. Steve was more familiar with him as well as his colleagues in the department. Word is he had been struggling with depression, even had to take leave a few times to get back on his feet. I never would've guessed, he presented himself as a happy guy but like I said, I didn't know him well at all.

3:00 PM

I'm... Shocked. I caught up with Steve at lunch. He was chatting with some of the folks from the east wing, along with Dr. Foster's secretary, Evelyn. She was a mess, in fact she had been given a few days leave to get over the shock of what she saw. Evelyn was packing up a few things from her desk when Steve got talking with her. The following he told me in confidence, made me swear not to repeat what he was about to tell me. I agreed.

Evelyn has told him that Dr. Foster was actually suffering from depression but also had bouts of severe psychotic episodes, which he had to manage with medication. He handled his symptoms well for the most part but the times when he took leave was because he required medical intervention for his psychosis. He would have audio and visual hallucinations which would include hearing voices in the audio signals received by the radio telescope.

Evelyn saw his car in the parking lot this morning, which was unusual as she always arrived earlier than him. She walked into Dr. Foster's office and saw him hunched over his desk. The room was lit by a dozen candles, some of which were burnt out. There was blood everywhere. All over the floor, walls, even the ceiling. Amongst the smears of blood were symbols, also drawn in blood. On the wall behind him, was a large whiteboard, in blood the sentence "We know nothing" was written. When she approached Dr. Foster's body, she saw that he was covered in lacerations, self-inflicted using the large letter opener on his table. She looked at the large symbol drawn on his desk. In the center of the symbol, was a face... His face. He had used the letter opener, flayed off his face then placed it perfectly in the center of the symbol. He had deep lacerations in his wrists, and his neck was cut deep from ear to ear, all self-inflicted. That was when he bled out and died.

As soon as medical services removed the body and a cleanup crew did their thing, the deputy director Dr. Alastor told the secretary to take leave and he locked the office door. She is expected to go down to the police station to make a statement, but she told Steve that she didn't know what to tell them. She had seen Dr. Foster's journal open on the table. It had scribblings across all the pages that became increasingly nonsensical with each page turn. Ramblings consist of, "we are only ants", "it is coming", "the great [REDACTED] is approaching, we shall be enlightened, finally we will see".

I was left speechless after Steve told me all this. I didn't want to believe it. A few days leave to get over the shock? More like a lifetime.

June 13th 2022

11:50 AM

We have received the first images from the telescope, finally! The level of detail and clarity is astonishing, finally we are able to see even further than we ever have before. We have shared initial images with the general public last week and they are being well received. What a time to be alive. We will focus on tracking objects deeper into the cosmos to really test what this observatory is capable of, very exciting times indeed. We should receive some new images in a few weeks.

There hasn't been word on the director, Dr. Hakke, for a few months now. People are speculating he has actually passed away from his illness. I told Steve that can't be true as surely there would be some sort of staff announcement, however Steve reckons they want to keep it on the DL because if news got out he died, stocks would plummet. He loves his conspiracies, but given the nature of how much we rely on private contracts on top of government grants, I wouldn't be all that surprised...

Here's hoping traffic isn't too bad getting home, there have been isolated small scale riots in the inner cities disrupting traffic, damn hippies.

June 29th 2022

7:20 PM

What a day... I arrived at the office a little later than usual this morning. The mood was tense among the staff. Word is that the latest batch of images aren't cleared for public release due to an "anomaly". I examined the images myself after I finished running the diagnostic checklists on the observatory. Looks odd, I've seen similar looking images and illustrations. It looks similar to Bootes Void AKA the great nothing, a patch in space where there are barely any galaxies or stars. The difference with this particular void is that it is pitch black, barely a flicker of anything, except for the very center, which has a bright object, likely a galaxy, brighter than anything we've ever witnessed in the universe prior to now. On top of this, the void strings out in many different directions with long, thin tentacle looking arms stretching out into the surrounding space. This anomaly is huge. In fact huge doesn't even begin to suggest the sheer scale of this thing. Bootes void is 330 million light years in diameter, this is

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nearly 5 billion by our initial estimates. We are continuing to examine this further. We have been advised by the director that this is Top Secret until we work out what this is. Top secret? That sounds overkill to me but what do I know? I just work here.

Steve was overjoyed with the discovery but like most of us, pissed off we are unable to share it outside the facility. He also informed me Evelyn won't be returning, she took extended leave but I'm not surprised she didn't want to come back, this place would be a constant reminder to the horror she witnessed that day.

July 1st 2022

2:00 PM

Had a terrible night's sleep last night, crazy nightmares, so I was late to the office. Did a pretty good job sneaking in because no one noticed. No Steve today... He must've taken some time off for a long weekend, it's the summer after all. We don't have the go ahead to take new images yet so we are waiting for the green light until then. Ran diagnostics and calibration as normal, maintaining orbital trajectory.

9:10 PM

Holy shit! Those images... They're appearing on message boards and spreading throughout the internet. They even reached the evening news! To my knowledge these are still Top Secret clearance, unless these were released officially, someone at the office is in some DEEEP shit. Should be some juicy drama to look forward to tomorrow morning.

July 2nd 2022

9:30 AM

They pulled EVERY member of staff into the conference center for an emergency meeting. Director Alastor was present, along with some other suits and some heavy security. These weren't our security guys, they looked like secret service or CIA. Dudes with black suits, dark shades and earpieces.

The following transcript is from the emergency staff briefing held by Director Dr. Alistor Videl on the morning of July 2nd:

"As I'm sure you are all aware, there has been a leak of Top Secret documentation from this facility. This delicate information has made its way to message boards, social media and finally, mainstream news outlets. I will be holding a press briefing in light of this leak to put the public at ease. We have reason to believe this leak was internal, intentional and not a data breach. We will be conducting a full and thorough internal investigation of all facilities within Metis Laboratories. Those responsible will be brought to justice and face the full force of the law at the hands of the federal justice system for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917. That is all, dismissed."

Journal entry cont:

HOOOLYYY SHIIIIT. This was done on purpose? But why? Why would someone jeopardise our entire operation? I tried to call Steve from the break room but his phone was engaged. I'll not disturb him on his holiday, I'm sure he'll catch wind of the news soon enough.

As I was getting ready to leave, colleagues flooded into the break room and put the news on the TV. It was the director... He rambled on a bit but the main gist of his spiel was the photos weren't a leak and they were actually greenlit and scheduled for public release today. The anomaly in the photo isn't confirmed but we are 99% certain this is just a calibration issue with the mirrors of the telescope and to expect more teething problems as the observatory is in its early days of it's long and prosperous service to space exploration. Well thanks for throwing my department under the bus Alistor...

9:30 PM

It took me 3 hours to get home! Those bloody riots are getting worse. Speculation on the news says it's economic hardship, another station says political tension, and another proposes the emergence of a new cult riling up their congregation to fight the oppressive powers that be, who threaten the coming of the dark age.. Very entertaining at first but it got so late I swung by Burger King on the way home as I couldn't be arsed to cook something.

I was doing some more browsing after watching the news, who seem more docile in their reporting of the anomaly. The message boards were rife with different conspiracies ranging from Big Bang 2.0 to space squids. It was all fairly amusing.

I'm going to bed early in anticipation for a thorough probing from the higher ups tomorrow. Their investigation is well underway and they're slowly making their way around the staff.

9:50 AM

Shit! SHIT! It was Steve! He called me from a withheld number just as I was dozing off. He sounded borderline incoherent, his voice trembling, and he seemed on the edge of sobbing uncontrollably. I asked him where he was but he refused to tell me. I asked him if he knew about the leak...

The following is a partial transcript of the call:

"I did it... I had to... They lied to us Adam... they know exactly what it is. That THING! Listen to me Adam, I can't talk long, they are tracing this call, but just know I had to do it. They kept us in the dark... this... anomaly. It's not a void... It's [REDACTED]. Alistor knows everything...

You think all of this civil unrest is a coincidence? Mankind's collective sanity is tainted... it's being corrupted as we speak, by a cosmic force greater than anything we could even begin to understand. Look to the sky... You see it too, don't you? Please, go outside and just look! I don't have long left... Those voices Dr. Foster heard... before he killed himself? I hear them... they tell me... [End of call]".

The call dropped... I frantically tried to reach him again, but the line was engaged... What the fuck! He sounds like he's lost his mind! Do I report this? Are they really tracing our calls?

1:00 AM

Try as I might, I just can't sleep... That phone call rattled endlessly around my head. I found myself drawing patterns between him and Dr. Foster. Clearly I'm overthinking. I don't know, I'm tired and stressed, I can't think straight. I worry I'm hearing things too, long passed family members calling my name, shadowy silhouettes in dark corners of the room... I'm fine, I'm just freaking out. I'll sit outside and have a smoke, that'll help.

1:20 AM

Steve... I don't know what to say... I don't know what to think. I can't begin to describe what I saw... As I was sitting there, on the porch. I looked into the distance. It's elevated so I can see all the way across towards the city. There were rising flames from the riots, smoke plumes that went for miles. If I listened closely, I could hear shouting, screaming, even chanting. What the hell is going on? It feels like everything is falling apart...

Then I looked up... Words can't describe. My heart skipped a beat, then went into overdrive. I could've passed out in that instant. The sky was... wrong... It was dark, I mean pitch dark... The familiar constellations were gone, with only sparse clusters peering through at the sides of this... Mass... Before vanishing, then reappearing from behind long, black tendrils of

darkness. This was with the exception of the center. In the very center of the empty expanse, was a single star. It was brighter than anything else had any right to be in the night sky. It wasn't the moon, this was something else. It had an amber hue, and it pulsed with an orange glow. It looked alive. It rested in the very center of this mass, like the nucleus of a cell.

Just as I was about to try emailing Steve, in hope he would see it, I received a text. It read, "Adam, I'm at Metis, get here ASAP. please, HURRY!"

2:00 AM

The following is a transcript from video footage taken from the cell phone of Dr. Adam Grimshaw

"I'm making my way to Metis Laboratories to make contact with Dr. Steven Kleiner. I've had to circle around the city to avoid the chaos. There are bodies in the streets... People running around everywhere like crazed zombies. Cars overturned and set alight. There are no police or army guys around anymore. This is hell on earth..."

2:45 AM

Transcript cont:

"I've reached Metis Labs... This is something from a nightmare, you can see for yourself. Blood everywhere. Bodies littered in every corner, some with familiar faces... all these blood trails converge into one down the corridor, towards Dr. Alistors office."

"More bodies are suspended from the ceiling, in the atrium just outside Dr. Alistors office... This is a horror movie, I'm dreaming, this can't be real... I can hear screams in the distance. Fuck! I need to find Steve! I'm about to enter the office of Dr. Alistor."

The following dialogue is from Dr. Alistor Videl as transcribed from video footage recorded from the cellphone of Dr. Adam Grimshaw:

"I'm sorry son. This is the way things are now. This is our path to enlightenment. The old must be purged in fire to make way for the new. Blood must be spilled to pathe the way our destiny. You'll come to understand soon enough. We didn't hide this from you. You felt him, you were drawn to him, thus you released him. [REDACTED] rewards us with eternal wisdom and bliss in the new dawn of our species, because your dear friend Steven, took the initiative to spread word of his very existence. We see, he notices, he bestows, we receive, we are enlightened.

Go now, into the new world. Don't worry, it will grow on you."

3:00 AM

This transcript is the closing statement of Dr. Adam Grimshaw:

"Steve, was dead... Strung up in Alistors office, cut down the middle, like a carcass in a butcher's shop...The new world... this is it... We single handedly brought the destruction of our world. We dared to venture too far. We saw what we weren't supposed to see. The void was [REDACTED]... We cast our gaze in wonder, unknowing of the terror that awaited us... [REDACTED is here, in the skies above us, watching over us. This is Dr. Grimshaw signing off... We knew nothing..."

...

This Story was Written by Mr. Black

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This story was taken from the Podcast: "Some Dude's Shed: Halloween Special 2021"