T-029 Choir

Threshold Institute · Case file T-029

Number

T-029 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 30, month 7, day 15

Where found

The walls of the roofless ruins beyond T-001, nearest the western edge first

Status

Loose

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

No one answers a voice that calls their name. No one leaves a room to find a voice, and no one is let out of a room to find one; the room's door is held from inside. Surveys shelter at night in open ground or in ruins already cleared by daylight, and keep their own talk low and without names. In the cell block a choir is held in a cell with no wall shared with any other room, lined inside with soundproofing like the echo's cell (T-005). The staff who watch it are rostered by number, not by name, and no name is spoken in its block.

Description

A creature that lives in the walls of the ruins beyond T-001. It is heard first as singing behind the stone: many voices, low and wordless. Then it calls the people it hears by name, one at a time, in voices that are almost those of people they know: a parent, a partner, a colleague. Whoever answers hears their name again, nearer, from the next room. It takes those who go to look. It has never been seen apart from the wall.

Discovery

After Ruth Abel's report of voices below the rim (T-028), Rehn sent a survey under Viktor Saar to search the ruins nearest the western edge. On the third night the survey sheltered in a roofless ruin and heard singing in the walls. Then the voices began to say names.

Addenda

Addendum T-029-1

incident log, Year 30, month 7, day 15. Compiled by V. Saar

Night, first hour. Low singing in the walls of the ruin, from all four sides. No words.

Second hour. The voices begin to say names: mine, Rask's, Kask's, Fors's, Dahl's. Each in a voice I would have sworn was someone at home. Mine was my brother's.

Third hour. Dahl answers, before she can stop herself. Her name is called again from the next room, nearer.

Third hour. Surveyors D. Fors and J. Rask go to the next room against my order, Fors first. Rask comes back at once and says the room was empty. Fors does not come back.

Dawn. Fors found two rooms away, in a room with no door we can find. Dead, his face to the wall. No wound.

Dawn. On the last call before light, the choir calls a name that is not one of ours: Petr Lask.

Addendum T-029-2

interview with night technician Jonas Berg, Year 30, month 8, day 2. Interviewer: T. Rehn

Berg was asked to hear Saar's report because the echo (T-005) learnt his voice in the Institute's first years.

Rehn: You have read the report.

Berg: Twice. The echo learnt my voice by hearing me. It said my words back. This is not that.

Rehn: Why not?

Berg: The echo only had me. It did not know my mother. Saar's brother has never been through the rift. How does a thing in a wall out there know his brother's voice?

Rehn: What would you tell the teams?

Berg: What I tell myself on the sealed level. When you hear your name, you are already being hunted. Do not answer. Do not go and look.

Addendum T-029-3

note by T. Rehn on the file

The echo learnt one man's voice. The choir seems to know everyone's. I have underlined one line of Saar's log for the Director. Petr Lask was not on the survey. He was at the Institute that night, in his second month of training for the deep expedition that Anneli Sund has begun to plan. He has not been told.

What followed

The preparations went on, and the next year a survey brought back the answer to the trader's rotten tins (see T-030).

Previous fileT-028 TetherPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-030 ClockworkPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Jonas Berg, Anneli Sund, Petr Lask, Lina Dahl, Viktor Saar, Ruth Abel, M. Kask, J. Rask and D. Fors.
• Places: The sealed level, The cells and The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 30, month 7, day 15. Found by a survey under Viktor Saar, sent after Ruth Abel's report of voices below the rim to search the roofless ruins nearest the western edge of the land beyond T-001. On the third night the survey sheltered in a ruin and heard singing in the walls; then the voices began to call their names, each in a voice they knew, and one of them went to look.

It sits where it calls from and does not move. Of the voices it calls in, only one is its own; the others come from the walls round the listener, never from where it sits.

One who stands quite still hears the false voices go hollow and the true one stay clear. The cell is lined against sound. Status: loose.

Today it is found at the lab and in the rift.

It goes down after losing 1200 ml of its 3600 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.

Watch T-029 Choir on YouTube