Archive of Our Own

Things were getting bad again. He was getting bad again. He’d noticed it of course, the signs that he was steadily getting worse. They coiled around his ankles, wet and cold, dragging him back the way he’d come.

The dark shadows in the corner of his eye, always gone when he turned his head, but always real enough to make the sticky feeling of dread fill his chest. The way he’d wake up not even an hour after he fell asleep, head muddled with dark, confusing dreams he couldn’t remember.

He’d started chain-smoking again, chasing a burn, a feeling, something that wasn’t this constant anxiety. Even his favorite foods seemed flavorless and he’d forget to take his lunch, seldom hungry. 

The bruises he didn’t remember getting seemed to multiply constantly. His coworkers were annoyed with having to repeat themselves, and the pace at which he worked through assignments was slower. He was just barely meeting deadlines. 

He was constantly spacing out. He felt agitated and on edge despite trying his very best to ignore it. If he just pushed through it’d be okay. He was still taking his medication, still seeing his doctor. It was different this time. This was fine; he was just playing up how bad it had gotten in his head.

But tonight he couldn’t even manage to fall asleep. The blankets, the sheets, his clothes, it all felt wrong against his skin. His thoughts kept wandering right back to the same person no matter where he tried to steer them. 

Jay Merrick.

What was it about Jay that bothered him so much? Besides the frankly bizarre ways he acted and his constant filming that put Tim on edge. It wasn’t normal, carrying a camera around and filming everything. He couldn’t understand why no one else seemed to call Jay out on it. It was almost as though Tim was the weird one for being bothered by it. Like he was being unreasonably paranoid to dislike being filmed constantly by someone he barely knew.

He twisted towards his nightstand, fumbling around for his cell phone in the dark. His fingers knocked against it and he grabbed it clumsily, pulling it towards his face and settling back in bed. The muscles in his neck spasmed from the awkward way he’d turned. He winced and rolled out his neck, relieving the sharp pain.

The harsh light of the screen made him squint as he flipped his phone open, thumbing for the calendar app. When had it all started? Two weeks ago? No, longer; more than a month. The tiny numbers blurred together in his eyes. He screwed them shut, dry and stinging from the intense way he’d stared at the digital calendar. Desperate for the dates to make sense of the way he’d been lately. For them to hold the answer to what his problem was this time.

He counted back, trying to remember the last time he felt normal; the last time it felt like he was functioning without really thinking about it. Three months? Had it already been that long? What had happened that week? The week before just falling asleep had become complicated and exhausting.

Jay.

Jay Merrick.

That had been the week that Jay had suddenly appeared, sitting on the bench outside of his doctor’s office. Asking about Marble Hornets.  

The name still tasted like metal in his mouth, felt like a heavy weight behind his eyes, like fatigue he couldn’t shake. The wrongness of it clung to him like wet clothes stuck uncomfortably to skin, impossible to peel off. 

Alex Kralie had been unbearable to work with, but there had to be something more than bad directing wrong with Marble Hornets. A few months with an irritable director shouldn’t make him feel this anxious. This trapped. And the questions, the places they went, the way Jay behaved, it wasn’t normal. It all felt so wrong.

He’d been trying to be casual about it all, brush the weirdness of it aside and focus on work and school. Maybe Jay was just different, that wasn’t inherently harmful or bad. Tim was different too, but in a way he knew was actually dangerous, actually bad. Mentally ill in a way that left no excuse for his actions, only reasons he should be locked up again. He may have long since lost his “danger to other patients” label, but that still existed inside of him, he knew. 

But it was more than that. It wasn’t that Jay just fumbled with his words or pressed conversations most people would politely drop. There was something… dangerous about him. Tim was pretty sure Jay wasn’t aware of it. He didn’t seem to realize his actions could affect others at all. It was like he viewed himself as a mere observer, unable to truly touch or change things around himself. 

Whether that was from a lack of self-worth or a lack of self-awareness, Tim wasn’t sure. But danger dripped from Jay’s skin in a way that made Tim’s hackles rise. It was like Jay was prey being hunted by some dark, unnatural beast, leading it right back to Tim. As though It was following Jay too. And every time they’d crossed paths in the last three months, it’d taken everything in him not to bolt in the other direction. To run as far away from Jay, from It , as possible.

Run away from what? As soon as the thought entered his head, the memory slipped from his grasp, and his throat constricted, a wet cough forcing its way past his lips. It was always like this. There always seemed to be some sort of barrier, like a physical wall between the memories of his symptoms, of his childhood, of why he was the way he was, of where he’d been the last few weeks, and his everyday memories. The moment he thought he remembered something important, it vanished, pulled back behind a wall of burning static. Leaving him with the feeling that maybe he was better off not remembering at all.

He wiped the corner of his mouth with his hand, the subconscious need to cough fading as he stopped chasing buried memories. Maybe he was just being paranoid, trying to shift the blame of how miserable he’d been feeling to the easiest target. It was his own mental health that was suffering and he was the only one responsible for managing it. Tim was the problem, because wasn’t he always?

How could some guy he knew in college and seen a total of three, maybe four times since be causing all of these symptoms? He was being ridiculous. Jay was a nice guy. He always asked if Tim was okay when the subject of his frequent doctor appointments came up. Most people just looked away awkwardly and changed the subject. 

Tim couldn’t decide if he was annoyed that Jay always pushed and followed through with the question, or if he was just unused to it. 

It was different. No one had asked if he was okay and actually meant it since…

Brian.

He missed Brian. 

His gap-toothed smile and easy affections, always bouncing about, always so serious when he was worried. The way he’d stare at you so focused and enraptured when you genuinely answered his questions. 

But he never talked to Brian about any of this, any of the ways his own brain made his life hell. Scared Brian would know he was dangerous and avoid him. He wouldn’t have blamed Brian, but he hadn’t wanted to lose the first real friend he’d ever made either. That was the first time he remembered not feeling lonely.

And he’d been doing better then, those first three years of college. Brian could probably tell something was off about Tim anyway, he was a psych student after all. But he never pressed Tim to explain his behaviors, and he was grateful for that.

All he’d wanted to do was be a normal college student, hold a steady job; and forget the smell of hospitals that seemed permanently burned into the skin of his nostrils.

It’s why he’d started smoking, something to get the saccharine, sterile smell out of his skin. The way smoking soothed and grounded him was just an added bonus. One that quickly became his go-to coping method whenever anxiety would constrict his throat or static would begin to crackle in his ears.

He needed a smoke. That would fix him. He’d just smoke and go back to bed and… keep on keeping on, right? It had to get better again at some point. 

But some part of him knew that it was only going to get worse; that this was the same pattern he’d always been trapped in. And that scared him. Getting bad again terrified him. It felt like losing control of your car, feeling it spin and roll, and bracing for an impact that took ages to come. 

He’d started checking times and dates obsessively, writing things down on his arm, desperately trying to make sure he wasn’t losing days or blacking out. He was doing fine, he’d kept this job for months now and attended all of his classes. He was feeling fine. He was getting better. It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair. No matter how hard he tried, he always ended up right back where he’d started, clinging to the charred and ruined mask of the person he wished he could be.

Spiraling. He was spiraling. He could see that. The words his therapist kept trying to hammer into his skull played in the back of his mind. Don’t just lay there. Get up. Do something. Ruminating will only make it worse.

Tim rose on unsteady feet, leaving his phone on the bed. He’d smoke, that would ground him. Settle the jitteriness of his nerves. It always seemed to fix him. So what if it made him more prone to seizures and worsened migraines? This was all he had and the meds were supposed to manage that stuff for him anyway. 

He felt along the wall for the light switch and flipped it on, shielding his eyes against the blinding light with his hand. The sudden brightness added to the headache building behind his eyes. There was always a dull throb in his head these days, but it was the least of his worries and he ignored it.

Tim walked around his room with fumbling steps while his eyes adjusted, searching for where he’d left his cigarette pack. Even the small things were escaping his memory lately, lost behind the static slowly enveloping his brain. It used to come so easily. He was losing it again.

He passed by his laptop and stopped, hand brushing over the top. It was just an idea, a hunch. He’d just do a quick google search and it would put him at ease. He was probably overthinking it, and nothing would pop up. Then he’d know he was being paranoid and he could…do something. Put the worry to rest maybe. Go back to blaming it all on things beyond his control. Just like he always did. 

He plopped down in his desk chair, pushing his sweaty hair back from his forehead. He’d need to shower in the morning. It was disgustingly hot in his room since the A/C had broken and he was always sticky with sweat. Maybe that was the reason he wasn’t sleeping well, and he was just letting his anxiety play it up to be more grave than necessary.

He booted up the laptop and drummed his fingers anxiously on his desk. His eyes wandered around the room while he waited for the login screen to load, coming to rest on the crumpled cigarette pack on his nightstand.

Ah.  

He’d finished the pack before he went to bed, that’s why he couldn’t remember where he left it. He’d chain-smoked his last five cigarettes, taking drags so long the smoke burned his throat just the way he craved. But then they were gone so fast he’d needed another and another until he’d grown nauseous and lightheaded.

He’d ended up vomiting his dinner into the bushes behind his house. It would be impressive he’d managed to forget all that in just a few short hours if it wasn’t so unnerving. It added to his growing list of reasons to feel uncomfortable and restless tonight. 

Nothing felt right.

He logged into the computer, double-clicking the Firefox logo and waiting for the hourglass to go away. The familiar multi-color logo of his search engine greeted him and he clicked the search bar, typing in “Marble Hornets” with shaky fingers. 

He really needed a smoke. But he wasn’t keen on driving to a 7/11 when he felt this on edge and unsafe. 

Unsafe? 

Unsafe from what?

Himself?

It’s not like he’d never been classified high risk–a danger to himself at the hospital, of course he had. He’d been both restricted from “sharps” and put on suicide watch multiple times. It was just that he’d switched to the more socially acceptable act of smoking, and he managed the despair and hopelessness better now. 

Mostly. 

He blinked as the results loaded. There were so many more than he had expected. The top result wasn’t even Alex’s old, crappy website. The one they’d thrown together with help from a friend of Brian’s who was good at coding. Brian seemed to have friends in every major; he always knew someone with the skills they were lacking. 

And even if Alex was a bit off-putting, Brian was the kind of person you wanted to help no matter what. He was the only reason Tim had auditioned for Alex’s film at all. 

A YouTube channel stared back at Tim from his laptop screen, foreboding in a way that felt absurd. YouTube videos made sense, he reasoned. This was a student film after all. It was a little weird to upload bits of it when it wasn’t finished; from what he remembered they barely had enough finished material to scrape together into a lame trailer. But that didn’t change the fact that it was just a stupid YouTube channel. He was really letting his paranoia get to him.

Tim clicked on the introduction video and leaned back, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. The dread in his heart grew heavier with each elapsed second on the video. Alex was a little dramatic, but this matched up with what Jay had told him. 

He was just being paranoid, this was going to prove it. So why was the cold feeling of dread coiling around his heart? Why did his mouth taste like ash and dirt?

He clicked the first entry and his breath caught in his throat. His head burned with a hot static. This was wrong, this was all wrong. This had nothing to do with the pretentious film they’d been making.

What was that? Was that a person? That was It and he’d been seeing It out of the corner of his eye for months.   

A painful cough forced itself out from deep in his chest and he doubled over, leaning against his desk.

Why did all of this feel so familiar in the worst way? 

The static in his lungs burned and the quick, shallow breaths he took made it worse. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. 

He kept clicking on the next entries in between coughing, feeling worse every time the red bar filled at the bottom. But unable to stop watching, to close his eyes, or to look away.

He was on the seventh entry before he knew it, the videos went by much faster than they felt.

It seemed like he’d been sitting here for hours, drowning in the distorted video and broken audio. Struggling to press the coughs from his waterlogged lungs down. But the clock at the top of his screen told him it had only been around 15 minutes. 

And there was Brian, Brian Thomas. 

Something about seeing his friend’s face calmed him a bit, grounded him. He took a deep breath and swallowed a cough, focusing on the sound of his voice. He hoped Brian was doing alright, unaffected by that Thing and Jay’s invasive filming. Somewhere far away from it all. 

Tim had lost contact with him some time… He wracked his brain, a bit startled to realize he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Brian at all. 

He hoped that was a good thing, hoped that it meant that he was busy being a therapist or whatever. Hoped the life he was living was still one so vastly different from the dark mess that was Tim’s. 

Then his breath caught in his throat again. It was there. He almost missed it but It was there, behind Brian. Watching always watching.  

His heartbeat quickened again and he pressed a hand to his mouth. What if It had gotten to Brian too? Alex was clearly aware of It, determined to leave as soon as he saw It. But Brian seemed confused, unaware. Tim hoped that meant It wasn’t there for him, hoped this was somehow the last he’d see of Brian on these tapes. 

His head hurt, he wasn’t even able to pin down why that Thing was so wrong, so unnatural. He just knew he didn’t want to see It anywhere close to his friend again. 

Alex made odd drawings in the next video. Something about the repeated symbol felt familiar to Tim. He didn’t like it, it was uncomfortably personal. 

It felt like half-broken crayons, faded construction paper, white walls, and constant supervision. 

Of being asked by a doctor with tired eyes to explain what the drawings he’d made meant. 

They always wanted words he didn’t have, and they never liked the answers he gave instead. 

He didn’t know; he couldn’t remember. But when would they help him with that Thing standing in the corner? The pills made him tired, but never tired enough to stop seeing It. 

The repetitive drawings were comforting, he remembered that now. Had they been a comfort to Alex too?

He was in this entry with Sarah. This was more of what he remembered Alex being like, mean and angry over the smallest things, voice raised more often than not.

This was the day he really considered just not showing up for the next filming session, but Brian had seemed so sad when Tim joked about it in the car on the way home.

“He’s under a lot of stress, I’m sorry.” He smiled apologetically, explaining it away with a wave of his hand.  “Ah… The professor is hard to work with, you know how it is.”

So Tim had clenched his jaw and told him not to worry about it, it was just a joke. 

Shortly after that Sarah and Seth had stopped showing up; Alex said they had moved away. Tim thought it was weird to move mid-semester, but everyone else accepted it so readily that he had swallowed the gnawing doubt. Maybe it was common, it’s not like he’d really know. 

There were always things that surprised him about how normal people lived their lives. It made him feel a bit stupid and he did his best not to let it show. Instead acted like he too, expected and was used to these things. 

The next few entries were a blur. He kept spacing out. It felt like he was looking at his laptop through glass. Almost like he was inside a fish tank; submerged in water that distorted his vision. Everything around him seemed wobbly and far away. 

Every time It appeared on screen his head hurt and his lungs felt raw, like he’d inhaled water. His chest was tight with anxiety. He just wanted this to be over.

He didn’t like the memories these videos were bringing back to him. They resurfaced like bloated corpses from a dark river, rotting, rancid, and not nearly as old as you thought. Something you so desperately wished you could tear your eyes away from.

He came back into his head a little when his name appeared in the entry title. 

He had almost no recollection of this interview, but somehow, it felt violating to see it just posted on YouTube. Everything before this was personal in a way only he knew; no one else watching would know what it meant to Timothy Wright. But this was an interview he hadn’t known was an interview.

It was really almost an interrogation of sorts.

The content wasn’t anything he particularly cared about being made public, but the fact that Jay hadn’t told him he’d be posting it anywhere burned with the sting of betrayal. 

He didn’t know why this surprised him; Jay Merrick hadn’t been honest about any of this, but it stung nonetheless. He’d wanted to believe Jay was a good guy, was just weird in a harmless way, but this really seemed to put him on the dangerous side of different after all. 

Just like Tim.

Jay was looking for Brian now, but in what Tim could only envision was the stupidest possible way of locating another person.

Who tried to visit someone in the middle of the night? Especially in the South where half your neighbors were armed. And all he’d brought by way of self-defense was a small pocket knife.

It was pitch black, but he’d gone back twice now. Like an idiot. This must’ve been the house Brian had moved to after college, Tim didn’t remember it at all. 

They sat there.

In the dark, waiting for Jay Merrick.

Seeing them like this, unavoidable, Tim felt the calmest he had all night. He had no choice but to admit it now, they weren’t just something from his childhood. 

They were the reason for the large gaps in his memory over the last few years. It’s not that he didn’t know they were still around, he’d held onto the mask for them after all. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it. Because admitting it would mean things had been bad enough he’d needed protecting again. 

Meant that he couldn’t handle it, that they’d had to take matters into their own hands. It meant that the medication wasn’t helping as much as he’d hoped it was. 

He knew this wouldn’t be the last time he saw them in these videos either. 

They’d be back. 

And for the first time, he’d see what they did when he wasn’t conscious with his own eyes. 

He winced as he watched them convulse, having a seizure on the floor. Of course they’d skipped taking his anticonvulsant dose; they didn’t trust anything medical. It was always Tim having to deal with the injuries and skipped dosages when he came to. 

They acted like their reckless behavior only affected them and he hated it. Try explaining to a doctor how your leg was shattered by a blunt force when you had absolutely zero memory of the incident. 

He had to pay for all the medical bills too. It pissed him off. 

Their existence pissed him off, not only everything about them and their behavior, but the fact that he knew he needed them pissed him off. 

They were another reminder that he was too weak, too broken, too him, to handle life on his own. That the biggest problem in his life was still himself despite all the effort he’d put into bettering himself, into recovering.

He pulled his leg up to his chest and rubbed at his calf. It still ached when it rained or when he worked too many days in a row. 

He wondered what the odds were that the injury had something to do with Jay, whether it’d be in an entry. He wasn’t sure it was really something he wanted to see, but the way he was feeling now he figured it couldn’t make him feel any worse.

They were watching Jay sleep, perched up on the dresser like the raven from a gothic poem he’d read once. A bad omen, a warning, something unnatural. He had no idea what their goal was or why they’d broken into Jay’s house to stare at him while he slept. But there they were; silent and unnerving. They knew they were being filmed too, so maybe this was some sort of warning to Jay. A message to stop poking his nose where it didn’t belong. To leave them out of his clumsy attempts at investigation.

It didn’t seem to get through to Jay though; he was too obsessed with his mission to document and understand to be dissuaded. This didn’t surprise Tim.

In one of the next entries, Tim was wearing that same tan jacket they had worn. His stomach lurched at the idea that Jay Merrick knew, that he had seen the jacket and put together just who was under that mask.

Or at least, whose body was. 

But if he knew, wouldn’t he have said something?

Wouldn’t he have asked one of his thinly veiled questions?

Shouldn’t he have been scared of Tim?

His jaw ached from how hard he was clenching it and he forced himself to stop, working out the stiffness. 

Safe was not something he often felt, but the thought of Jay figuring out about them and Tim made him feel vulnerable in a way he hated.

Did they not understand that Jay was making all of these videos public? Did they not understand the danger that put them both in? If Jay hadn’t figured it out yet, surely someone else had. 

He didn’t want anyone to know. 

He’d spent all these years keeping their existence safe as best he could, even if he resented it. Even if it meant repressing their existence and memory as best he could. Because he needed them. Because they were often all he had.

When his mom left, when the nurses stopped responding to his screams, when he lost friends to the years spent inpatient; they were the only one who’d stayed. The only one who hadn’t grown sick of him.

He continued to click on the next videos doggedly. He needed to know how much more damning evidence these videos contained, no matter what.

His anxiety kept building and his computer screen seemed so far away. It was hard to focus on the tapes. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion; his hands weren’t his own and his breath felt foreign in his chest. There was a word for this, the one his therapist was always using for him. But it was hard to bring words to mind when thinking felt like wading through mud. He wasn’t sure how much time passed like this; he kept forgetting to check the clock between videos. But the anxiety in his chest didn’t dissipate. It stayed there balled up and burning. 

The camera panned around an abandoned, burnt-out building and he suddenly felt like he’d been thrown back into his body. 

Dissociating. He’d been dissociating.

And he missed it immediately as panic crawled burning up his throat.

Something was sickenly wrong. Something horrible had happened here, was going to happen here and it terrified him.

No, no, no , he didn’t want to see this.

He couldn’t breathe, he was choking on his breaths, on his sobs. The fist he had pressed into his mouth felt cold and slippery. His vision was blurry. He raised his other hand to his face and his cheeks were wet. He hated this. He wanted it to stop. His chest hurt and his head burned. 

He clicked on the next video and there it was.

There he was.

There was Alex.

His leg was aching and there was Alex Kralie.

They were there, jumping out with a pathetic pocket knife clenched in their fist. They had completely bypassed Jay even though he was closer, moving directly at Alex.

He heard Alex yell and he knew they had gotten him, though not well enough. He watched Jay and Alex wrangle them to the ground and hogtie them with a cord.

Watched Jay pull off their mask. 

Their protection. 

Their face.  

He tried to breathe around the coughs and sobs wrenching free from his chest.

They weren’t safe. He wasn’t safe, and he knew exactly what was coming next.

Pain exploded behind his head and in his leg as the block of cement came down and they screamed.

Alex Kralie had smashed their leg with a block of cement, he had smashed his leg while Jay Merrick filmed with his damning camera. 

The video rolled to its end and he sat there, choking and crying.

He didn’t envy them this memory at all; he almost thanked them for keeping it from him.

The pain and fear of when he’d woken up in the back of his car coursed through his body as fresh as the day it’d happened. The memories of the aftermath swept through his head, all out of order, swishing around in his brain. He felt like he was drowning. 

He rocked back and forth in his chair, hands tangled in his hair, pulling at the locks as hard as he could. He clung to the pain like the stinging sensation was a life preserver. Their leg had been smashed. Their protection had been taken away. No one had been there to help them.

Jay had known about this.

He’d known about them. Even if he didn’t understand them as being separate from Tim, he knew.

He’d seen this, he’d filmed it. And he didn’t tell him about any of it.

Was this why he always pushed to hear Tim say he was okay?

Was he okay?

Had he ever been okay?

He buried his face in his knees and wept. They had no one and Jay Merrick couldn’t stop to consider the consequences of his actions for even one minute. Leaving them with no choice but to bear them.

He was feeling better. He was doing fine.

He was being dragged through dirt and leaves screaming. He was being dragged underwater until his lungs filled with blood and he drowned. 

He was feeling worse. He was doing bad.

Tim stayed curled up like that for a long time, waiting for memories and phantom sensations to stop burning through him like he was doused in lighter fluid. His throat was raw from coughing and crying. There was smeared blood on the back of his hand and his lungs ached from the forceful inhales and expels of air that had wracked his body. He was exhausted. 

Apathy settled into the gaping hole anxiety had filled and he rubbed his eyes blearily, trying to read the numbers on his digital clock.

If his memory wasn’t failing him again, it’d been a little over two hours since he started watching these. He was probably only halfway through all the videos on the channel; there were still so many more.

He pushed his chair back from his desk and rose on shaky legs, leaning against the desk for support. Once his legs felt steady he walked slowly to the bathroom and turned the light on; the dying fluorescent bulb buzzed. He grimaced at the uneasy atmosphere it created.

He’d heard enough buzzing tonight already.

He leaned over the sink and ran the faucet, splashing cold water on his face and rinsing the taste of metal from his mouth. 

He dried his face on a towel and moved to the kitchen for a glass of water, hoping it would soothe his burning throat. He was calm now, but only because of the exhausting apathy that always followed being triggered. He felt like he was watching someone else perform the movements he took, at least his thoughts weren’t racing anymore.

He needed to call Jay; they needed to talk.

He needed to hear his reasons for not telling him about this, why he’d hidden everything from Tim.

He’d give him the benefit of the doubt for not taking them to the hospital; they had probably dragged themselves away and lashed out if he came near.

And there was no way Jay was strong enough to wrestle them into cooperation. But he wondered how much less scary and disorientating it would’ve been if he hadn't woken up alone. If Jay was there, if he had stayed to explain and offer help instead of being hellbent on chasing Alex with his camera. 

He downed a glass of water and leaned his head back against the fridge.

It’s not like he blamed Jay for not staying; he wasn’t even sure he blamed him for anything he’d seen in the tapes so far. 

He just wanted to know why he hadn’t told him.

Why had he reached out to Tim and lied about the reason?

What was chasing Alex and filming everything and posting it on YouTube doing?

What was he trying to accomplish like this?

And why had he dragged Tim of all people into it?

He set the glass down on the counter and stared down at hands that didn’t feel like his own. Would he be able to make a phone call like this? He walked back to his room, rolling his shoulders and neck, trying to feel tangible again. Trying to ignore the fish tank feeling that surrounded him.

Sitting on the edge of his bed he scooped up his phone, flipping it open and thumbing for Jay’s number. His finger hovered over the enter button as he considered what he was going to say.

Meeting up to talk was probably the best option. It was late, but he had a feeling Jay was awake and not planning on sleeping any time soon. 

He exhaled and hit enter, holding his phone to his ear as it rang. Jay picked up on the second ring. 

“Hello?”

“Uh, hey. It’s Tim.” Silence on Jay’s end gave him time to consider where they could meet. It needed to be somewhere close by and easy to find for Jay. “Can we meet outside of Terry Jr’s in a bit? It’s near…” He struggled to find an easy location marker that someone who didn’t live in town would know. “The hardware place. Look, we need to talk about something.” He kept his voice as neutral and steady as possible, hoping he sounded normal somehow.

“Uhh… I’m kind of busy right now, I’m actually on my way to, uh, Walmart for some stuff.” Jay’s voice seemed to jump, as if he was caught at an inopportune moment. “But um, I could meet you there in like two hours if that’s okay? I don’t know if you have like, work tomorrow or something,” He sounded surprised but not overly guarded, which Tim took as a sign his “normal” voice was working.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I don’t have work until the afternoon. So…” He had no idea if he had work tomorrow. He wasn’t even sure what day tomorrow was.

“...Uhh alright, cool. Um, what– what did you say you wanted to talk about again?”

“Just…stuff. You know how to get to Terry’s right?”

“Um, I think so? Probably,” Jay did not sound confident. For all the time he’d spent in this town the last few months he still didn’t seem to know his way around that well.

Tim meticulously explained how to get there, making Jay repeat his directions back to him. It took a good ten minutes for him to get it right. Tim pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, finding minimal comfort in the fact that at least Jay would probably have this recorded on that stupid camera of his if did forget.

“Alright, you got it. Great. I’d say try not to forget, but I’m sure your camera is recording this anyway.” 

There was a pause on the other line. “...How did you know my camera was recording?” Now he sounded guarded.

Tim rolled his eyes and let a sardonic tone into his voice. “It’s been rolling every time we’ve talked, Jay. It’s kind of hard not to notice.” Tim may not have been normal, but at least he knew that.

“I guess so…” Jay sounded sullen. “Well, I’m at Walmart now so, I, uh… I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, bye. ” It was a relief to have this over, maintaining this faux normalcy was tiresome. He wasn’t exactly pissed at Jay, but he wasn’t really fond of him right now either. Even phone calls with him felt dangerous somehow. He’d feel on edge if he wasn’t so exhausted.

“Yeah, um, bye.”

Tim moved his phone away from his ear to hang up, but moved it back when he heard Jay speak again.

“Bye…?” Jay said, uncertainly.

Tim sighed irritably and hung up. Jay always said goodbye like five times, and he no longer had the patience for it. 

He set his phone down next to him and rubbed his face. It only took 10 minutes to drive from his house to the restaurant, which meant he had a lot of time to kill before he saw Jay. He wasn’t keen on the idea of imagining how their conversation would go over and over for the next two hours, so he figured he might as well finish the entries. 

But his sense of time was still hazy and slowed; he worried he’d lose track while watching the videos. He fiddled with the watch on his wrist and set the timer for two hours. As long as he remembered what the timer was for, he should meet Jay at the right time.

He gritted his teeth and rose, moving towards his desk. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like the rest of the videos any more than the ones he’d already watched. But it felt like he needed to know what was in them anyway, for his own sanity. Or lack thereof.

He sat down in his chair again and tapped the mousepad to wake the laptop out of sleep. He clicked the Marble Hornets channel logo and scrolled down to the entry he’d finished earlier. There were still over twenty videos he hadn’t watched. 

He scrolled to the top of the page and narrowed his eyes at the cover image for the most recently posted video. So Jay had posted all of their interactions then. 

He shook his head and scrolled back to where he’d left off, clicking on the next video. It was a continuation of the previous tape, but thankfully they weren’t in it. As dissociated as he was right now, he didn’t think he could handle seeing them in pain again.

Jay was yelling at Alex like that was going to make him regret his actions; Alex defended the violence as necessary. Tim dug his nails into his palms. He didn’t remember a lot about the time he’d spent with Alex Kralie in college. But from what he did remember, as irritating as Alex could be, he hadn’t been like this. Or if he was, he’d hidden it a lot better back then.

The video was thankfully short and finished quickly. If his memory was right they shouldn’t be in any videos for a while. After that incident, Tim had spent a good month in bed and then another two on crutches. It was about six months before he was able to return to work full time. The months of recovery had been agony in many ways and he remembered most of them in miserable detail. 

He was right about neither them nor himself appearing in any videos for a while. And he was able to watch a good chunk of them without remembering anything too personally upsetting. The static in his head was dulled by the dissociation, but wet coughs still rose in his throat when that tall Thing appeared. It felt like there was something important about It that he’d remembered earlier, something he’d forgotten just as soon as he’d remembered it. None of this felt real or tangible. He kept catching himself spacing out, staring at the finished video screen.

Tim wasn’t expecting their appearance any more than Alex was when he went down suddenly, groaning and holding his head. A hooded figure had led Alex from his apartment to the woods; he guessed they’d been waiting there in ambush.

The hooded figure sat nearby as Alex lay on the ground, keeping guard. Waiting for them to be the one to act further.

It was weird to think about them having friends he knew nothing about. He wondered how they’d found each other and became partners against Alex. How it was they communicated and planned things. As far as he knew they were non-verbal, and not many people spoke ASL around here.

They had taught themself ASL at some point. Or maybe someone else had taught them at the hospital, he was never really sure. He had only figured out they spoke it because other patients and sometimes the therapist would try to talk to him by signing. He’d just stare blankly, as ASL was another memory he did not share with them. It had been difficult to explain why sometimes he didn’t speak verbally and only signed, but other times he only spoke verbally and didn’t seem to remember ASL at all.

He wasn’t sure what they told those they talked to, but he knew they never revealed themself as a different person. There was no other name the doctors or other patients used for him. It was always just, “Oh Tim, you’re talking today?”

So he went along with it. They must’ve had a reason for pretending to be him, even if as a child he hadn’t really understood. But he got it now, the reason to pretend. Though these days they were far less interested in pretending, much to his chagrin. 

Didn’t they understand that he was an adult now and trying to live a normal life? That it was way harder to explain things away when you couldn’t blame it on being a traumatized child acting out? That running around in the woods with a mask on at the big age of twenty-something was scary to people?

In the video, they slammed a rock down next to Alex’s head. Their way of saying, “Remember this?” Their way of handling the threat he had become, of protecting. Of getting a point across on their own terms and ground.

Tim flinched and looked away. Maybe Alex did kind of deserve it, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with it. When it came to violence one thing always led to another and it was easy to lose control. 

He didn’t trust himself to be angry.

Invariably that anger would be taken out on either himself or someone else and then he’d have another reason to hate himself, to be hated. 

He still wasn’t sure where they'd gotten the knife they’d used earlier, before they’d gotten their leg smashed. Tim didn’t own pocket knives for a reason. A self-imposed “sharps” ban of sorts. He didn’t trust himself to be mad and he didn’t trust himself to carry a knife. 

They didn’t seem to have the same fears. As aggressive as they could seem they were in total control of themself, focused and direct. Never doing more than necessary. He supposed that’s what the rock had meant, “I’m not like you. I won’t lose control or use your brutal methods.”

He watched them and the hooded person run off, startled by something off-screen. From the way they were hobbling they were probably still supposed to be using crutches when this had happened. The little devil. Probably put him another few weeks out for recovery.

He rubbed his calf again, wincing at phantom aches. They obviously felt pain too, so he didn’t understand why they couldn’t be just a little more careful. A little less reckless with the body they shared.

He kept clicking on the videos one after another; it felt like they were never-ending. It was a descent into depravity for both Alex and Jay. Tim sat there watching them sink lower and lower; their failed attempts to stop Its influence recorded and posted for all the world to see. It was the kind of thing that would’ve felt like a TV show drama if he wasn’t involved himself. 

Jay was stalking Alex, breaking into his apartment, and forcing information out of him with no regard for his own safety. It wasn’t like breaking and entering was new for Jay, but the recklessness of his behavior had increased dramatically. The sheer stupidity of some of the decisions he made astounded Tim. How had he survived this long without major injury?

And Alex had progressed from smashing legs to smashing skulls. Tim felt like his reaction to Alex murdering an innocent man should be stronger; that he should be shocked and horrified. But he just sat there, a gross taste lingering in his mouth, because this made perfect sense. Of course the road he’d taken would lead to this dark tunnel. Of course there would be uninvolved victims.

And of course, this knowledge wouldn’t make Jay second guess playing detective even a little.

Against the hope he’d had at the beginning of these tapes, Brian was back. This was clearly from when they’d been working on Alex’s film, but for some reason, it was just Alex and Brian filming alone, which felt wrong. His memory of the filming was fragmented and muddled but he was almost sure they had planned to go there together. 

His blood ran cold when he saw where Alex was leading Brian. Why were they at the hospital of all places? How had Alex and Seth found it? Jay had said that Tim had mentioned it, but that didn’t match up with what Alex was saying. Not that he really believed what Alex was saying here, as he was clearly acting off. His heart and interest weren’t in filming his project at all, it seemed more like he was stalling. Waiting for something.

Then It appeared. Looming and dark and unnatural. But of course It was there, It was always there.  

His head burned and he breathed through the murky water in his lungs, forcing down the need to cough.

The camera cut and then Brian was alone, searching for Alex. It seemed that all anyone stuck in this mess ever did was search for Alex Kralie and get hurt because of it. The care others gifted him like a lifeline he threw back at them as a noose.

Brian found Tim instead. He didn’t remember being there, but from the lack of reaction he gave while Brian yelled his name and tugged on him to get up and go, it wasn’t surprising. He had a feeling he was there because of the same reason Brian was. He’d probably shown Alex the location the day before, there was no way he'd have found it otherwise.

Right to the end Brian was calling for Alex and trying to help Tim, because that’s what he did. Brian Thomas looked out for others. Even those as broken and twisted and undeserving as Tim and Alex. 

Then that Thing appeared again. And Brian was on the floor. And Alex was dragging his limp body from the room. Keeping his victims separate; because he was only strong enough to take them alone. 

Was this where it had all started then? Alex Kralie had attacked him and left him at the mercy of whatever that Thing that followed him around was. And that’s why they’d started coming out again, why he’d lost jobs and failed classes and couldn’t think past the static in his brain. 

That monster was screwing up his life and it was all because Alex Kralie had decided it was fun to sacrifice people who’d done nothing but help him? He was feeding It, like some kind of rabid dog. Like that would somehow save him from being bitten. Like he could possibly satiate something like that.

But Tim had been feeling fine; he’d been doing better despite all of this. He’d made it out and pieced his life back together until Jay Merrick had popped up and tore it all up again, shoving his camera in Tim’s face, asking him back to the places that hurt him, and lying about all of it. 

Like it wouldn’t affect him, like Tim wasn’t a person with his own life and problems to deal with already.

And Jay was still running around playing detective after that tape, dragging this poor girl Jessica into it and admitting only to his camera that he knew it was wrong. That he knew it was dangerous and stupid and all his fault if something terrible happened. 

Tim didn’t know why he didn’t just tell her not to come. But then despite his words, Jay still didn’t seem to get that his actions could affect others. That they were affecting others.

Alex led them deep into that cursed forest and they followed like lambs to slaughter. 

But they were there, once again saving Jay from the consequences of his own foolish actions. Tim didn’t know why they were so intent on inserting themself into this mess over and over again. Why they went out of their way to protect and rescue the people Alex went after. They were braver than Tim in that way, more willing to get mixed up in trouble for the sake of others.

Tim didn’t want to get mixed up with anyone. He’d been hurt and hurt others enough to know he was better off alone. What good could he possibly do that was better than minding his own business and not involving others in his problems? 

And maybe he was a bit of a coward. Maybe he hated the feeling of being vulnerable and the idea of being known. But it’d been working out just fine before he let himself get tangled up in Marble Hornets again.

It wasn’t like it was wrong for them to try to help others. It wasn’t like it was bad for them to be a bit of bleeding heart; he just couldn’t do that. And he should’ve remembered that the moment Jay had asked for his help. 

They could be the good one. They could go play hero and risk their body for someone else. He’d stitch their shared body back together and curse them under his breath, but he wouldn’t stick his neck out anymore. Not for anyone, and especially not for Jay Merrick. He would keep his head down and try to hold the last few functioning aspects of his life together.

He’d finally reached the videos from three months ago. After almost four hours he was back to when things had still been good, still normal.  

Three months ago. The thought that itched like a burn and wouldn’t let him rest until he’d dragged buried memories out from under charred rubble. 

Three months ago when he’d been doing well, when his doctor was proud of his progress. When, for the first time in years, it had felt like he was truly in control of his condition. Like the ways he took care of himself mattered. Like maybe he could be a functioning member of society instead of a burden.

And three months ago Jay Merrick had started stalking him, followed him around town and waited outside his doctor’s office for a week. All because Tim was acting normal and doing fine and that wasn’t allowed, it wasn’t right.  

All because the things Jay wanted to know were more important than anyone else’s well-being; because privacy and boundaries meant nothing to Jay in the face of what he wanted. What he thought was important.

He wasn’t even trying to fix any of this. He wasn’t trying to stop Alex, or even warn anyone involved.

He had upended Tim’s whole life just to post videos on YouTube? Because he worried he might forget something? Tim worried he’d forget things constantly because he did, but he never dragged anyone else into that. Never decided it was fine to break into houses and post clips of private incidents and stalk people.

He even had the audacity to post the phone calls Tim had with his doctor. How could he have possibly thought that was appropriate? Tim hadn’t known the tapes he’d given Jay included a phone call he’d had back during college. Not that that surprised him, he genuinely had no idea what was on them, but he certainly hadn’t expected an innocent phone call to be treated like this.

So what if Tim had a “history” with his symptoms? So what if they were something he’d struggled with all his life? Jay had no idea how hard he’d been working to manage them. To function. To get better. It’d taken everything he had just to be normal enough to go to college. No one knew how hard he’d worked to not let his symptoms show, to not bother anyone else with them. 

If Alex was dealing with something similar he’d done an awful job at coping with it. What exactly had Tim done to deserve being compared to a murderer like this? Lost sleep? Had headaches?  

If some insomnia and head pain were enough to make Alex Kralie kill people that had nothing to do with Tim. Had nothing to do with them or their existence and he fumed at Jay saying it might. 

He’d acted in Alex’s pretentious dumpster-fire of a film, gone out of his way to give the tapes to Jay, and taken him to shooting locations for this? To have his private struggles posted on YouTube and then be compared to a film student turned violent murderer?

Jay was a lying piece of…

Jay Merrick ruined his life.

He was almost as bad as Alex was.

Tim had been right about being the one to tell Alex about the hospital, but he hadn’t taken him there without some coercion. He may have repressed a lot, but even back then he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trapped and burning inside. The clawing desperation of being unable to escape still lingered in the burned-out annex.

It was funny how Jay had said almost the same exact things that Alex had to coerce him into going to the hospital. Had that been on purpose? Was he trying to trigger the memory of these tapes for Tim? Or was he just unaware of how similar to Alex he’d become? 

Maybe Jay wasn’t smashing him over the head with a metal pipe, but he was showing almost as little care for his well-being. He’d seen what Alex had done to Tim in this building and still insisted he bring him there. Like it wouldn’t affect him. Like it wouldn’t be upsetting for Tim to revisit the place where he’d barely escaped being murdered. Like the events in these two tapes weren’t traumatic for him. 

Tim had been nothing but decent to Jay. To Alex. He’d done nothing but try to be civil and help them like they asked and they’d ruined his life in return. They’d lied to him. Hurt him. Used him. 

Jay had picked snapshots of his life to edit and depict Tim as he pleased. Clipping and wording things like he was a bad person, like he was a liar. Empty words asking if he was really okay meant nothing if he turned around and did this. 

Despite what Jay thought he didn’t owe him any of the private details of his life. He wasn’t owed knowledge of his medical history or what he’d been doing in his own life since college. It was none of his business and not sharing it didn’t make him suspicious.

He was allowed to act normal, to act like nothing had happened. He was deserving of an okay existence, wasn’t he? He had been feeling better. He had been doing fine. It was all Jay’s fault he wasn’t anymore.

Everything good was burning up even while he clutched desperately to the normalcy he had built with singed hands. Even while his lungs filled with water in a way that made him feel like a water-logged corpse moving through life, he had tried to stay okay. 

And Jay Merrick had waltzed in here with his camera nearly dripping with blood, just to play detective, to act like it was Tim’s fault he was this way. As though one day Tim had woken up and decided to make his own life a living hell of misery. 

What did Jay Merrick know about him? What did Jay Merrick know about what he dealt with, know about what he’d been through? What gave him the right to play detective, judge, and juror? 

Tim rubbed angry tears out of the corners of his eyes as the most recent video ended. He felt used and violated, like straight-up garbage. It’s not like he had great self-esteem even on his best days, but as bad as he felt about himself he didn’t think he’d deserved this. 

He was so angry. He hated feeling angry, because it always felt like his only options to deal with it were either tearing himself apart or punching someone else. And punching Jay Merrick for everything he’d put him through the last three years sounded real good right now.

The timer on his watch beeped, making him jump. What poetic timing. It was time to meet Jay.

Tim rose from his desk, grabbing his keys from the counter on his way out the door. He needed to stay calm. He needed to stay in control. He was fine. He could drive safely and keep it cool until he got there. The drive over would give him time to decide whether punching Jay Merrick was a good idea and worth the consequences. It was definitely worth it .

He locked the door to his house with shaking hands as angry tears burned down his cheeks. He was just so pissed. He’d never felt so wronged in his life. All of that had happened to him and not only had Jay not bothered to tell him; he’d posted it on YouTube for everyone else in the world to see. 

He’d seen and edited all of that footage from the last three years, never once truly deciding to stop. If Tim didn’t tell him he knew what was up, if he didn’t show him that his behavior was unacceptable, he would never stop. He would never leave him alone; Tim would never feel safe.

He was so tired of being dragged around by things he couldn’t control. He was so tired of never feeling safe and not knowing the reasons why, but Jay Merrick was not going to be one of those reasons anymore. He would not be a reason for Tim’s paranoia to thrive and feel validated. 

Tim may be a coward, he may not be as good at protecting as they were, but he could do this. He could get Jay to leave him alone for his own peace of mind; once Jay agreed to stay out of his life he could work on putting it back together. 

Even if it took him months. Even if he had to burn the water out of his lungs and rip the staticky cotton from his head with singed fingers. Even if it meant returning to the knowledge that he was better off alone; getting involved with others was always bad news. 

Maybe in the back of his mind, he’d been hoping that he and Jay could potentially be buddies. Maybe he’d just really been hoping that for once he wasn’t about to get screwed over by trusting someone. He’d been a fool to push down the gnawing doubts he had about Jay just because he was a little lonely. He knew better now; 

Jay Merrick was dangerous. 

Jay Merrick was a liar.

Jay Merrick was the problem.

And if Timothy Wright had to be the first person to tell him that to his face, he’d be happy to oblige.