AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is my first Night Vale fanfiction. I am slightly new to the fandom, however I think I know what I'm doing and am consulting someone who knows the show pretty well. Excuse me if I make any mistakes. Please make me aware so that I can fix them. Feedback is welcomed and appreciated! That includes constructive criticism.
PS: The notes in bold font in parenthesis are not to be read. They are stage directions that tell the reader how things are supposed to be read, and what is going on when Cecil isn't actively describing what is happening.
WHELP HERE WE GO
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PROLOGUE
Cecil Palmer stepped into his recording studio, purple bow tie slightly off center, white hair uncombed. Strands hung in his pale face. The sleeves of his shirt had been unevenly rolled up, revealing shifting, many-colored tattoos that crawled around on his skin from the wrists up. Also bearing the properties of a tattoo, a single inhuman eye blinked in its place on his forehead.
He took a silver key from his pants' pocket and put it to the door's keyhole. With his hands shaking wildly, it took a few tries before he finally got the tip of the key in. A click told him that the door had successfully been locked. He didn't bother taking the key out.
He took a few nervous, half-determined steps across the room. Then he stopped and looked back towards the door.
A low moaning could be heard in the distance.
He turned back to the heart of his recording studio, adjusting his glasses. After a second try, he made it all the way across, to the other side where a set of filing cabinets sat.
He pulled on the bottom handle. It didn't budge. Something inside of the filing cabinet groaned and shuddered, causing the metal to rattle. Cecil reached out, petting the side of the cabinet. "Shhhhh, shhhhhhhhh, it's only me. Cecil. Cecil. Open up." He added after a pause, "Please?"
Slowly, the groaning stopped. He pulled again, and this time the cabinet opened. But instead of files, the cabinet held a large amount of old fashioned cassette tapes. "Thank you," he whispered. He rifled around until he found a cassette labeled "Tape 1".
"Please, please, please," he muttered. Muttered to no one. Not to Carlos. Not to Khoshekh. Most especially not to Night Vale.
Those days, you see, had long since passed.
He grabbed a dusty cassette player from beneath his desk and shoved the tape pressed play and then sat down underneath his desk as a broadcast went out to all of Night Vale. He pulled his knees to his chest and listened to his own voice echo against the walls of the room, providing a ghostly accompaniment to the moans still coming from beyond the radio tower.
The moans of his dear listeners.
