"Let me preface this by saying that I’ve been screened multiple times throughout my life for a variety of different mental illnesses and personality disorders, and though my family does have a history of psychosis, I have shown little to no signs of anything that would affect my reality in such a way that the last few years of my life could be conjured. Whether or not you allow this fact to sway the validity of my claims is up to you, but I can certainly assure that I believe in every word I write. A little over six years ago, I was studying abroad in a small hamlet up in rural Iceland. It was quaint and all, but in truth, there really wasn’t much to do out in the middle of nowhere. I was a Comparative Literature major and had gone to learn about the country’s rich folklore firsthand, so most of my days outside of swotting consisted of poking around the local library. Of course, all the books were written in Icelandic, a language I didn’t understand a lick of, so there wasn’t much reading going on. I think I just liked the atmosphere of the building; it was a nice place to set up my laptop and just relax a while, it definitely helped that the heating system actually worked, unlike my apartment. I guess that’s what I get for backing out of the homestay program. It was late one night, and I had accidentally lost track of time working on an assignment due the next morning. I was honestly shocked the library even stayed open that long, but it must’ve been well past midnight by that point. I was tucked away into my own little corner of the building, where the bookshelves sectioned-off a little nook around a table, so I had no clear view of the desk by the entrance where the librarian would usually sit. All the lights were on, so I assumed they hadn’t left yet. I was promptly proven wrong when I stood to leave and noticed the desk was empty. I was absolutely exhausted and not really keen on staying much longer, so I never went looking or anything, I just did my best to quietly slide out the door and not overthink. Immediately upon stepping foot on the snow, I was blasted with the freezing cold temperatures of a town built in the shadow of a glacier. Luckily, the walk to my quarters was swift and—quite literally—straight-forward, with the apartment being just a few buildings over. I had never been out that late, so it was somewhat surreal seeing the already-desolate hamlet completely wiped of any life it may have had left. Once I made it back to the complex, I noticed that the reception there was empty as well, but I tried to not pay too much mind as I hadn’t much left to spare at that moment. I shuffled into my room and set my bags down, quickly taking off my boots and coat, and jumping straight into bed. I wasn’t really worried about sleeping in my clothes, as shadows had began to swell in my vision and I don’t think my eyes would’ve held up with anymore light. So that’s where I lied for nearly an hour; eyes shut in the cold dark, but no sleep came to warm me. I still don’t understand it—it’s not like I come by insomnia easily—but something just kept my body stilted. I figured the best course of action would be to distract, so I scavenged the nightstand for the remote and flicked on the television. I remember the next few minutes so vividly, as if I could simply close my eyes and hear the hum of the box. Most of the channels were dead, and I wasn’t expecting to recognize anything; just looking for noise. I ended up stopping on what I now know was an old recording of a stageplay called Glanni Glæpur Í Latabæ!—the Icelandic precursor to the children’s show LazyTown. While I can’t say I was an avid fan, I did recognize some of the characters off of the English adaptation, so I decided that it would work. I’m sure my condition at the time contributes to the the bulk of this statement, but I wouldn’t really recommend the show to sleep-deprived paranoid college students. It was oddly… phantasmagorical? Lots of bright colors and singing, but distinctly manufactured. No shade to the performers; rewatching it now, they were all crazy talented, especially the elf dude. It’s just, at the time, it kind of unsettled me. In some shape or form, it did help distract from whatever had kept me up, but I think I just replaced one creeping feeling with another. I had given up looking at the clock by this time, so I can’t say the exact hour, but when the show’s intermission finally came and it cut to the commercials, that’s when things really started to pick up. It was a slow slideshow of a few different landscapes, very obviously of Iceland. I didn’t recognize any of the locations, but then again, everything looks pretty samey there. In the background was the calm sounds of nature, crackled and distorted by the old technology. After a moment, it stopped on one nice picture of a small building on a hill, and a woman’s voice can heard. Of course, it was in Icelandic, so I didn’t really understand all of it, but I can remember making out the first word: Hyperborea. This wasn’t really odd to me as—while it wasn’t an Icelandic word—the word referred to a place ‘beyond the north’ in Hellenistic belief, one later connected to certain Nordic territories. As such, it wouldn’t be too unusual for some sort of local company to take inspiration from that. Still, I felt like my brain was melting out of my eye sockets and I wasn’t having any of it, so I turned it off and rolled over, covering my face with a pillow and finally willing myself to sleep. The next morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’m not sure what exactly it was, but the inherently foreign feeling of the commercial had drilled its way into my head. The voiceover must’ve replayed in my mind a thousand times by noon, so it should come as no surprise that I decided I would bring it up to my professor, albeit in some heavily-padded and roundabout way; I didn’t want him to think I was scared of a television advert. I did my best to mimic the woman’s words, and somehow—through my quite shameful impersonation—he extracted but one word: frumkvæði, meaning ‘initiative’ in Icelandic. Appending that to the word I had already picked out, I was left with Hyperborea Initiative, which simply beckoned far more questioning than I had ever anticipated. Like any sane person, my first though was to Google it; color me surprised when only one hyperlink popped up. At the time, I brushed this off as the site still being relatively new plus the fact that I was in an entirely different country. Of course, I clicked the link as soon as I saw it, barely reading the site’s name, but I do recall it ending in a ‘.is’ domain suffix. This is to be expected from an Icelandic website, but I thought it was worth mentioning for whatever reason. The site took a moment to load, but once it did, I was greeted by a image similar to the ones featured in the commercial. Overlaid were four or five different hyperlinks, each numbered starting from zero. My mouse had disappeared, so it was clear I was meant to navigate with my number keys. The words Hyperborea Initiative were located at the top-right corner, just as they were in the advert, but this time written in English. The entire site was actually, but I can’t quite remember what most of the links had been labeled. I do know they were all mostly blocked, stating that I ‘lacked the necessary clearance’. The only one that seemed to work was the last one labeled ‘exam’. Foolishly, I clicked ahead, still unsure of what exactly I was looking for. I was presented with a series of thirty-nine questions, each of varying abnormality, ranging from my blood type to the number of doors in my house. For the most part, most of my answers were complete nonsense, as I didn’t really feel safe entering any actual sensitive information on this foreign page. When the penultimate question asked for my full government name followed by my home address, I can’t exactly tell you what possessed me, but I ended up putting in that of my own goddamned tabletop role-playing character alongside the P.O Box of a former—rather nasty—employer. After this, I just… moved on. I know it sounds absurd, especially which how much I’ve hammered in my seeming obsession, but it was as if by filling out that form, I had freed myself of it. Of course, this would prove to be quite the contrary later down the line, but for a while I had allowed myself to largely neglect the whole thing. I just went right on back to my studies and spent very little time dwelling whenever the night popped back up again in my head. Soon enough, it was time for me to fly back to my home country, creating a much more physical distance between me the transpired events. And just like that, I had completely forgotten about the thing, save for a few potentially derivative nightmares, but I never made that connection at the time. I just resumed business as usual; same as it ever was." (1/?)