The Call of the Void · Acorn Arts and Entertainment

S2, Chapter 1: Memento Mori

·25 min·2 clips

Emerson Parker screams about voices in his head before suddenly dropping dead on Bourbon Street.

Chapter One opens with a scene of intimate calm as someone talks to a child or younger sibling about arthropods and exoskeletons — the chitin exterior as the only protection arthropods have from the world — a conversation that functions both as a quiet character moment and as a metaphor for vulnerability. Simone's presentation is the chapter's centerpiece: she presents research arguing that singular reality is too broad a term to identify the quantum human experience, proposing instead that individual perceptions and experiences actually construct conscious existence at the quantum level rather than accessing a common shared reality. The professors' response — promising, which Topher characterizes as the best possible outcome — leaves Simone anxious for weeks of waiting to find out whether she advances to the next round of evaluation. The conversation between Topher and Simone afterward is warm and specific, establishing their dynamic: Topher deeply supportive and only 60% comprehending; Simone caring but aware of the asymmetry. Walking home, they encounter a police cordon with blood on the road, and the brief exchange — kind of thought we were done with traumatic experiences — establishes that Season One events were genuinely harrowing. The Etsy segment at the police station is written with comic lightness: Etsy is there on an impersonating a police officer charge (apparently a familiar offense), jokes with a new tech named Jonah about cinnamon bagels and cream cheese preferences, and needles Officer Mason with affection. Mason's revelation — that there have been an unusual number of deaths in the city approaching Mardi Gras, more than normal — is delivered without drama but lands as the chapter's primary supernatural hook, suggesting that whatever phenomenon the characters confronted in Season One has not ended.

As heard by us

Banter, skulls, and a Yellow King detour let dread creep in sideways.

Someone is trying to keep a nervous little brother steady, first with talk of bugs and exoskeletons, then with a promise meant to hold him together when words are running out.

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Why you'd press play

A Yellow King detour that starts with palm readings, a shrine, and tourist banter before the weirdness lands.

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