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