CASE FILE 333-P/02-0001: The Curator
DIRECTIVE 333 - PROXIMITY EVENT RECORD
CLEARANCE LEVEL 4 REQUIRED
Distribution: AS-FEA Personnel Only
Date Filed: 2025.11.01@13:11PDT
Directive 333 – Proximity Event Record
Case File: 333-C/02-0001
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Subject: FEA-I003 Field Notes
Discovery location: Aircraft recovery site.
Dates Recorded: 2018.10.29—2018.10.31
Classification: TOP SECRET — ASEO
Handling Authorization: EYES ONLY — PHYSICALLY HANDLING THIS DOCUMENT WITHOUT EXECUTIVE CLEARANCE IS FORBIDDEN!
[— OCR Text —]
October 29, 2018
9 PM, En route to Las Vegas
It’s been a year and a half since the Nuclear Nine, and one year now since the founding of the Allied States and the formation of the FEA.
I’m heading to FEA Zone 9, Las Vegas, Nevada. People there are dying again. Not from radiation. Not from a burning city this time. They’re just here one day, gone the next, without a known cause. People are blaming it on the evil eye. It’s my job to find out exactly what that means.
I’ve been reviewing notes from past cases on the flight over. Husks. Singers. Watchers. They’re for certain related somehow. Similar symptoms. Same disease.
October 30, 2018
8 AM @ Vegas Metro Police HQ
Sergeant Hernandez, the desk clerk assigned to me, handed me six folders he had prepared. He rummaged through his cabinet for a bit, then handed me three more. Every victim was a high profile case with unusual circumstances and a dead end road leading to no clear suspect.
Father Elijah Groves, revivalist pastor, liked to preach along the Vegas Strip before it was nuked, survived the nuke by chance when he was touring a Cold War era bunker with a convert to the faith. Died 3 weeks ago. In the middle of a street sermon, he grabbed the back of his neck, then collapsed.
Trenton Alonzo, former mayor, lost control of his car and crashed. Autopsy indicates time of death occurred before the vehicle left its lane.
Police Commissioner Lydia Lo, collapsed while walking to her car.
Child prodigy and mathematician Anita Reyes, sudden death on the school playground. All of the other children had run for cover during the storm, but she said, “I ain’t scared of no evil eye.”
Systems programmer Jared Wynn.
City planner Ruth Moreno.
Civil engineer Oscar Gonzales.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Hal Gneiss.
After lunch, Hernandez brings me an armful of other folders. Several multiple-fatality incidents also tracing to the same circles of wealth, influence, and intellect. These aren’t random citizens. They were chosen, but by whom? And why?
“Looks like the evil eye is picking favorites again,” Hernandez muttered.
“Favorites? Or figureheads?” I say.
Figureheads of what? Why kill them? I have more questions than answers right now. Maybe I’ll find some answers at the morgue tonight.
4 PM @ Vegas Metro Morgue
Three recent victims lie on the table. The mortician shows me where they each have paint residue: red oil-based paint drops on the back of their necks, all embedded with a fine golden thread.
“It’s real gold,” she says. “Highly conductive material.”
Each thread is cut short, close to the neck, like something was connected to the end.
I bag a sample. She looks relieved that I’m taking it with me.
6 PM @ Ng Fabrics
I ask the shopkeeper what type of thread it is. Sara Ng says it’s nothing she’s ever carried. She refers me to Kaiju Threads, a specialty fabric shop.
It’s a specialty fabric from Japan: Honkinshi.
October 31, 2018
8 AM @ Kaiju Threads
The owner, Yukina Williams, says she has the only fabric shop in all of Las Vegas to carry Honkinshi. When I show her the thread, she flinched, but she had a lot to say:
Yes, that is ours. One artist bought all of my Honkinshi before the ports closed. I know you are in a hurry, but I think you need to hear my story. It will help.
She got up from her work bench, and poured us both a cup of tea. I took mine without sugar.
My grandmother would have like you. She was born in Kyoto. She lived in Japan through World War 2, in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima. She saw the blast and heard the explosion. After those bombs fell, everything changed for Japan.
Many years later, Mother married Father, an American naval airman at Iwakuni . Grandmother was very displeased, but she came to terms with it eventually.
We all moved to Los Angeles when I was very young. Grandfather wanted to bring his textiles to market in America, and Father’s family had connections from the port of Los Angeles. So that’s where I grew up in the textiles industry.
I moved to Vegas alone three months before the nuclear explosion. I figured it was a good place to expand our family’s business, but it’s been hard out here, all alone. I was safe on the north end only because I was in the cellar grabbing canned peaches. The rest of my house was destroyed.
After that, I lived in the shelter for 3 months, and then Nevada decided nobody was coming to help us, so we started rebuilding on our own.
I came back to what was left. It looked like a kaiju had come through, stomping on everything. But I had enough supplies left in the basement to make some sales, and my sewing machine still worked. That alone was worth its weight in gold. I’m glad I never sold it because I make more from sewing clothes for people than I could dream of making off selling that machine alone.
I asked her if the Vegas detonation reminded her of the stories her grandmother told. She shook her head slowly.
No. Hiroshima had air raid sirens and war planes. Men at war made that fire. This came from nowhere. The men here say the wreckage shows signs that it was an American nuke. Why would we bomb our own cities?
We walked outside. The wind was picking up, and dark clouds were rolling in.
My grandmother’s monsters were kaiju: strange monsters with strange purposes. Whatever this is, I think it’s something more sinister. Kaiju only kill if they are threatened. Why does the eye of a storm kill? Who does it serve? Maybe you’ll find your answers from my customer. Her name is Lena Varo, an artist in Tenement 7, four blocks north of here. Apartment 303-C. If you run, maybe you’ll make it before the eye catches you.
She shuttered her windows, then closed herself into her shop as the rain started. It was hailing by the time I reached the tenement district. I looked up at the sky, and I could see it. The eye of the storm, a break in the chaos. A ray of sunshine beaming down in the center, like a golden thread. I ran straight for it.
10:30 AM @ Tenement 7, Apartment 303-C
The tenement block was a half-rebuilt apartment. Rebar stuck out of the concrete rooftops at strange angles. I rushed up the stairs. Apartment 303-C would be 3 in from the corner. Someone was humming inside. The sound was low and rhythmic, almost like she was breathing the sounds.
The door to Apartment 303-C was already wide open, like I was an expected guest. Light was pouring from the room.
Lena Varo sat in front of a painting on an easel. The painting was of her, from the same angle I could see from the door. A woman painting a woman painting a woman painting….
It made me uneasy, and then she raised her arm.
“Stop!” I shouted, raising my sidearm, and she turned to look at me. Her pupils were white, glowing like bright headlights, and then she smiled. An eerie smile. She turned back, and dabbed a single drop of red paint on the neck of the woman in the photo.
A single drop of red on her neck appeared, as if crossing through space and time. Then she reached up with a needle in her other arm, piercing the neck of the woman in the painting, pulling the golden thread through. I could see it then, the golden light pouring into the room from outside, a thread as bright as the sun.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, inching closer, shading my eyes with my arm, unsure what protocol would even be in this scenario. Nobody trains you for something quite like this.
Lena grabbed a pair of scissors, and faster than I could blink, she cut the thread. The room fell dark as she slumped to the floor. Her scissors clattered away, knocking the painting off the frame, and it also fell, landing on a pile of painted canvases.
I holstered my sidearm, and ran to check her pulse. None.
I pulled out my cellphone, and texted a single message to 3-3-3:
Need more hands. New proximity type. Designation C for Curator.
Then I called 9-1-1.
Whatever is doing this, and it’s something out of the realm of human perception, they aren’t killing at random. Of all the souls they’ve collected up until now, they’ve taken preachers, mayors, engineers, surgeons, prodigies, countless other lives, every one of them important. And now they have their curator…. What are they building?
[— End OCR Text —]
Note:
Journal recovered from a downed aircraft. Remains of AS-FEA personnel, including the author, were also recovered.
Incident Addendum: 2025.11.01
Case 333-C/01 is the first verified instance of subject type Curator. No further instances of the “evil eye” have since been discovered. It is unknown what purpose these entities have for the souls they have collected. Event has been classified as Proximity Event, Type IX.
Recommendations: quarantine site of incident, document all related incidents and deceased souls related to this incident, monitor for incident recurrence, reframe public narrative.