The Annals of St. Remedius Medical College: "Monuments to Unknown Histories"
The Loneliest Memorial To A Lost...Something, Hiding in Plain Sight
(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)
In an otherwise unremarkable suburb northeast of downtown Dallas lies a monument to…something. The site itself, other than the metal fence around it, is completely unassuming. No rare or previously unknown elements, no radiation, no unique composition to the soil. No graves. No weapons caches. No traces of structures or vaults or vehicles. Grass grows within it, but nothing else. No animals crawl or walk within its boundaries. No dogs from the adjoining greenbelt park use the interior as a toilet, nor does the occasional human or human analogue. No birds. No insects. Just grass and sun and an absolutely oppressive psychic scream so strong that anything entering the perimeter is almost physically walloped with it.
Nearly every department at St. Remedius Medical College, as well as many enthusiastic postgrads seeking a paper to guarantee their future careers, has investigated The Park at one time or another since the late 1980s. All leave agreeing that the best thing to do is leave the site alone and undisturbed, and not draw any attention to it. The best prognosticators and the best temporal scanners all agree: absolutely nothing happened on this site for at least one billion years, and any intelligences or forces that might have stumbled upon it abandoned it as soon as they could cordon it off from the rest of the world. The current partition dates to the early 2000s, but traces of previous fences, walls, gates, deadfalls, and moats go way back, even through the periods where the area was underneath the North American Seaway during the Mesozoic Era.
Since taking samples seems to set off an even louder psychic scream until the samples are returned, every bit of information at S. Remedius about the site was gathered remotely and unobtrusively. Every last grain of sediment in The Park is part of a whole, with backlash being stronger the smaller the component removed. With enough sensors and enough wickets around the Park, it was actually possible to discern a voice, all understandable to the listener’s first learned language, within the scream, giving an explanation of sorts:
This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing of value is here. What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning. Ignore any bodies appearing inside. These are plastic and are intended to attract prey. A soup made with broccoli instead of okra may not be called “gumbo.” We have spoken, and will not speak again on this.Every November 14, a partially assembled Ford Pinto will stand on the perimeter fence and scream for thirty seconds before vanishing. Let it scream: it needs the attention.We miss chain letters. We do not miss public television pledge drives.No warranty, implicit or implied, applies to this warning. Your use may vary, very, and varie. This product actually shrinks swelling of cerebral tissues. Twins are intensely telepathic, but only fraternal twins. Removal of this warning by any other than the consumer is a violation of natural law and will be prosecuted the maximum allowed by the solar constant. rty34pr is the pond. Oh, and watch out for October 31, 2024. You might want to bring an umbrella.The Park remains under constant if covert surveillance, and not just by St. Remedius researchers. The Ford Pinto did not appear last year, and nobody knows why.
Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. And feel free to pass on word far and wide: the more, the merrier.