Board Thread:The Spiral/@comment-24588058-20151214145658/@comment-24588058-20151216015511

As interesting as Cynthia is (perhaps enough to be an artifact in its own right), I don't think her story is very dark or gloomy.

"The After Hours" is much more interesting, especially since we've already established that Serling made several episodes to cover up artifacts, and this episode may be trying to cover up a much more frightening artifact than the show made it out to be. Consider this: what if the artifact this show is based on is actually much more malevolent? Perhaps these mannequin legs were part of a whole mannequin, which had grown animated due to it being so lifelike.

Here's my story, which I'm making up on the fly: This mannequin had been created to look as realistic to a human as possible, and the artist displayed it in public, proud of their masterpiece. However, one person feared the mannequin, thinking that it was too realistic looking not to be real. He stole it, and hid it in his house in a locked room to keep it from escaping. His fear absorbed into the mannequin, making it animated and almost realistic. The mannequin escaped and killed the man for locking it in his closet. However, the fear that created the artifact was powerful, and it wasn't able to stop itself from seeing everyone's fear as a fear of itself. It began attacking indiscriminately at anyone who displayed fear, which quickly captured the attention of Warehouse 13. It took several agents days to finally track down the mannequin as the artifact, let alone separate it from everyone else. Two agents died as part of the retrieval, and the mannequin was partially destroyed. However, even though the legs were the only parts left, they were still malevolent and active. After several failed efforts to contain them, the legs were finally placed within the Dark Vault.

Mannequin Legs: Any fear within the artifact's range causes it to attack the victim until they are deceased. (EXTRA HANDLING PRECAUTIONS: ALL EMOTIONS, PARTICULARLY FEAR, MUST BE CONTROLLED WHEN WITHIN THE ARTIFACT'S PROXIMITY RANGE OR WHEN HANDLING THE ARTIFACT. IF TAKEN OUTSIDE OF THE NEUTRALIZER FIELD FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME, SECURE NEUTRALIZER CHAINS ARE NECESSARY TO KEEP IT FROM MOVING.)