A Script for The Index of Lost Selves

This wasn't research, not in the traditional sense. The academics upstairs, with their peer-reviewed journals and grant proposals, would call it madness. They didn't know that certain reels in this archive weren't copies of the 'Toronto Star' from 1972. They were memories. Trapped, excised, stolen memories, encoded onto flammable acetate. The Unseen University had excommunicated him for even suggesting it. They'd called him a conspiracy theorist, a charlatan. They'd stripped him of his titles and his access. Finding this reel—this memory of the alchemical exchange that went wrong—was his only way back.

The memory wasn't his. It belonged to a man named Alistair Finch, the only witness to the event that had ruined Denny's mentor and, by extension, Denny himself. The official story was that his mentor had bungled a transmutation, but Denny knew he'd been set up. Finch's memory, if he could find it and project it, would prove it. It would be his vindication.

He scrolled past grainy photos of politicians and advertisements for cigarettes. It was tedious, painstaking work. He had to feel for it, a subtle resonance in the plastic reel, a psychic hum that separated the mundane from the metaphysical. He'd been at it for weeks, his eyes aching from the strain.

The archivist was watching him again. Judy. She sat behind her large oak desk, stamping books with a quiet efficiency that seemed at odds with the chaos of her piled-up workload. She looked like any other overworked librarian—cardigan, sensible shoes, hair tied back—but her eyes missed nothing. She knew he wasn't here to research local history. The archives had their guardians, and she was one of them.

"Finding everything you need, Mr. Allen?" she'd ask periodically, her tone perfectly pleasant, perfectly professional. But it was a warning. *Don't cause trouble in my library.*

He ignored her as best he could, pulling another box from the shelf. The label was faded: 'Regional Council Meetings, Jan-Mar 1988'. He opened it. Inside, the reel felt... different. Warmer. It buzzed faintly beneath his fingertips. This was it. Reel 73B.

His hands trembled as he threaded the microfilm into the viewer. This was the culmination of a year of ruined friendships, sleepless nights, and the slow erosion of his own reputation. Everything was riding on this.

Judy stood up from her desk and began shelving books nearby. Her presence was a weight, a silent pressure. She was observing the final act.

"Big project you're working on," she commented, not looking at him. "Must be important, spending so much time down here with the dead."

"History is important," he replied, his voice strained. "Learning from the past."

"Is that what you're doing? Learning?" She placed a heavy tome on a shelf with a soft thud. "Or are you trying to rewrite it? The past doesn't like being changed, Mr. Allen. It has a way of pushing back."

He didn't answer. He turned the crank, advancing the film. The screen flickered, showing static, then the grainy masthead of a forgotten local paper. He kept turning, faster and faster, seeking the anomaly, the section of film that held the memory. He found it. A series of frames that were completely black.

He took a deep breath and hit the projection lamp switch.

The Unseen Footage

The light that filled the screen was not the weak, yellowed glow of the viewer. It was a vivid, three-dimensional image that seemed to pour out into the room. The air grew cold. Denny was no longer in the library basement; he was in a dark, stone-walled laboratory. The smell of ozone and strange herbs filled his nostrils. In the centre of the room, his mentor stood before a complex array of glassware, arguing with another man—Alistair Finch.

"It's too unstable!" his mentor was saying. "We have to abort!"

"We're too close," Finch countered, his face greedy. "The client is waiting!"

This was it. This was the proof. Denny leaned forward, his heart soaring. But the memory wasn't stable. The perspective shifted, swinging around the room as if held by an unseen cameraperson. It swung past Finch, past his mentor, and settled on a third figure in the room, standing in the shadows.

It was a young man, barely out of university. He was holding a small, intricate metal box. Denny watched as the young man opened the box, speaking a single, sibilant word of power. A wave of dark energy erupted from it, engulfing the alchemical apparatus. The glassware exploded. The memory ended in a flash of white light.

Denny stumbled back from the viewer, knocking over his chair. He knew that face. He knew that box. It was him. A memory from twenty years ago, one he had no recollection of. He hadn't been an innocent bystander, a loyal apprentice. He had been the saboteur.

He looked up from the machine, his mind reeling. The projected light illuminated the room, and he could see Judy standing directly behind where he'd been sitting. She wasn't holding a book. Her hand was outstretched, palm facing him.