Case File CF-020 · Recovered Sketchbook & Journal, Mixed Media
Unverified
Designation
CF-020
Classification
Case File — Archive Doctrine, Art. III
Subject
A.W. — self-referred throughout as "Venefica"
Format
Art-school sketchbook, ring-bound, prose and drawings interleaved
Recovered
University housing effects, retained past release window
Status
Unverified — parallel to CF-019, see Cross-Reference
001 · Archivist's Note
Cataloguing note
Recovered from a university housing office's held-effects storage, well past the standard retention window. Ordinary in every way a student sketchbook is ordinary — class notes, doodled margins, a fall semester's worth of figure studies. Catalogued here for one recurring drawing that appears eleven times across the book, and for the subject's own use of a word that predates this archive's adoption of it.
Voice note
The subject narrates her own experience using the vocabulary available to her — inherited belief, family history, a word she settles on for what she believes is happening to her. None of it is corroborated by the archive. It is preserved as her account, not as fact.
002 · Recovered Pages
Selected pages, in sequence. The book runs front to back with no reversed pages, unusual for a working sketchbook.
early semesterfigure study, margin notes
5:30 run with Wendy, theater 1010 with Mr. Aldous who thinks a monotone voice is "gravitas," painting after lunch which is the only reason to get out of bed most days. Drew the model's hands wrong four times. Kept the fourth one anyway.
~week 6theater 1010, back corner seat
Something moved through the room during the lecture. Not a person. Light, maybe, except light doesn't stop and point. Asked the guy behind me if he saw it. He didn't. Everyone decided I was having "an episode." Fine. Let them decide that. Face went numb on the left side for about a minute after. Drew this instead of notes. Don't know why I drew a bird with a woman's face. Never drawn one before. Drew it again on the next page without meaning to.
mid semesterpainting studio, evenings
Staying later than the building wants me to. Told the model I'd walk him out and somewhere in that I stopped being careful about who I let close. That's on me to notice and I noticed it after, which is worse than not noticing at all.
after the party—
Not writing what happened. Writing that I know exactly which four people were there and exactly what everyone else in that room chose not to see, which was apparently a lot of practice for them. Slept in Ashley's room for a week. Didn't report anything. Don't ask why, I know why, I just don't want it written down twice.
[three pages torn out at the binding, not water-damaged — removed]
weeks later—
RA did a welfare check because I stopped answering my door. Told her I was fine. She looked at my sleeves too long and didn't say anything either, which I understood — we were both agreeing not to make it a bigger day than it already was. I'm not going to write down what she was looking for. Just that I let my sleeves down before she left.
later stillfigure study abandoned, bird-woman repeated 4x
Stopped going to the group thing they wanted me to go to. Being around people who are trying to fix you costs more than being around no one. At least being alone doesn't require a face.
My mother's people believed things watch over a person when they're in danger and sometimes it isn't gentle about it. I used to think that was just a nice story for children. I don't think that anymore. I don't know what I think instead, but I stopped being afraid of the dark this month and that scares me more than the dark did.
final entrieshandwriting notably steadier
Cleaned out the whole book tonight. Numbered every page. Made a little index in the front like it's a collection someone's supposed to find later, not a sketchbook someone's supposed to hand in for a grade. That's the word I keep landing on for what I'm doing with all of it now — curator. Not the girl it happened to. Just the one keeping the record straight.
Whatever was in that room with me in theater 1010 — I stopped asking it to leave. I don't know when that happened. I know it happened.
— final page, torn clean, nothing legible remains —
003 · Case Questions
1
Who was this person before contact?
An art student with a stable routine — morning runs, a consistent friend group, a documented interest in figure drawing.
2
What changed in their behavior?
A sensory disturbance during a lecture, a recurring involuntary drawing motif, withdrawal after an undisclosed incident, and adoption of a self-descriptor ("curator") absent from earlier pages.
3
What did they gain?
By her own account, a loss of fear — of the dark, and by the final entries, of whatever she believed had been present in that lecture hall.
4
What did it cost them?
Her friend group, her willingness to be checked on, and — by the book's own structure — her identity as the person the incident happened to.
5
What is the Signal?
— absent. The subject offers her own belief, but this is her framing, not the archive's.
004 · Cost Law — Observed Correlation
loss of fear→loss of the friends who used to check on her
a steadier hand→last page torn out by its own author
control over her own record→became its keeper instead of its subject
005 · Cross-Reference — CF-019
Two uncorroborated documents, no shared name, campus, or timeframe, each producing the same unprompted self-descriptor — curator — at the point where the subject stops documenting an event and starts documenting a pattern. The archive does not resolve why the word recurs. It notes only that it has now recurred twice.