Case Notes – Agent Dana Scully
Date: December 12, 1995
Subject: “Substance X-13 — Informally Referred to as ‘The Spice’”

> Mulder has developed a dependency on a compound we recovered from a classified desert research site. The locals call it the Spice. According to preliminary lab data, prolonged exposure heightens perception, expands awareness, and causes an alarming overconfidence in one’s own destiny.

Mulder asked me to keep it from him — “no matter what I say, Scully.” He looked deadly serious, the way he does before a bad idea. I agreed.

Within twenty-four hours, he began pacing like a caged prophet. His eyes burned amber, his speech shifted from rational to poetic madness. He insisted he could see time folding, that he could “smell the truth.” He begged for the Spice. I refused.

The man who once chased aliens through cornfields now trembles before a handful of sand. His words cut between fury and desperation — accusations, promises, confessions. He tells me I’m saving him; he tells me I’m killing him.

I want to give in — just one dose, to quiet the shaking, to ease his mind — but I remember his plea: “No matter what I say.”

So I stand firm. I lock it away. I listen to him rage, plead, whisper that he can taste the future on his tongue. And I cry — not because I doubt him, but because love sometimes means guarding someone from their own apocalypse.

— Agent Dana Scully