Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ellora stared at the screen in front of her. Should she really be doing this?

No. She had to. It was all they had left. All the footage found.

Besides, she owed it to Kara.

Swallowing hard, she started to type.

Part 1

The following footage is the only edited material from an unfinished episode of “Aquarius in the Reel World”, a web based documentary series created by Orion Aquarius and Owen Conners.

It was recovered from a laptop found in their empty hotel room.

“AitRW_ep8_roughedit2a.mpg” sat in the bottom left corner of the screen.

The car cruised down the road, footage fading in. The camera turned to look at Orion driving, who gave the camera a side eye as a voice-over began with music fading in over a montage of Orion doing various activities, such as reading books and walking through buildings.

“Hi, I’m Orion Aquarius. I’m a filmmaker and pop culture historian. I’ve made it my life’s work to show the world how important films are to us and the unexpected ways in which the film world collides with our real world. This… is Aquarius in the Reel World.”

The logo faded in, a spinning film reel with two lines of film crossing in an X behind it.

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

Orion spoke into the camera as they walked down the path. “Welcome everyone to another episode of Aquarius in the Reel World, a series in which I take a look at all the different ways that films affect us, and vice versa. I’m Orion Aquarius, of course, and as always I’m joined by my assistant, Owen Conners.”

Owen turned the camera toward himself, giving it his best smile. “And on today’s episode we’re here in Riley, Illinois. Uh, you could call it mine and Orion’s old stomping grounds because we graduated from film school about five miles… thataway?” he suggested, pointing. 

The camera returned to Orion. “Ever since we started this series, we wanted to do an episode about something that we ourselves are very familiar with. And that’s…”

“Urban legends!” Owen piped up from behind the camera.

“Urban legends,” Orion confirmed. “That’s right. You see, urban legends are what I like to think of as this rich primordial soup where creatives can reach in and pull out the raw ideas that they then mold into the horrifying masterpieces that we know and love. Now, urban legends are often tied to specific locations as well, and there’s one location out here that everyone knows. Let’s take a look.”

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

“Riley Hospital has sat abandoned since its closure in 1999. Ever since, it has been the subject of countless urban legends and ghost stories. Students from the nearby university often trek through the moonlit woods surrounding it to visit this place as a rite of passage, staying just long enough to see the crumbling walls and the dark, twisted hallways. It’s also well-trodden ground to Owen and I personally, as we shot a major part of one of our projects out here when we were film students together. This old hospital is–”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Owen interrupted, bringing Orion’s voice-over recording to a halt. “Are you not gonna… are you not gonna say what it was called?”

Orion snorted. “No, I wasn’t planning on it, but I guess you can.” 

Owen grinned. “Okay! It was called Orion Aquarius’ Story Thieves and it was about… stop me if you’ve heard this before… a guy comes back to his hometown after graduating college and things…” he paused dramatically… “...are different.”

Orion stopped in his tracks and turned to face the camera. “Don’t put any footage of that in this.”

“I’m going to,” Owen told him, grinning cheekily.

“Absolutely not.”

“Maybe I’ll just do it in the edit when you’re not looking,” he added, just to poke the bear. “Sorry, you were– you were saying?”

Orion sighed and rolled his eyes at Owen. “Anyway, the old Riley building is deeply connected to this place. It’s provided young creatives with an unending supply of inspiration over the years, and soon, we’re going to venture back into it.” He paused. “But before that, we’re joined by a local folklorist and expert on the history of Rosswood.”

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

“I’m Ellora Dox, and I’m the assistant curator and lead archivist at Riley Historical Society. I’m deeply passionate about our local history.”

Orion nodded. “Ellora, thank you so much for joining us today.”

She nodded, smiling. “Thank you for having me!”

“Of course. Now, could you tell us a little bit more about Riley Hospital?”

Ellora tilted her head back thoughtfully. “Well, Riley Hospital was established in the spring of 1952. Its campus consisted of two main buildings. Uh, the first was the dormitories—that was for housing patients—and the other was for treatment during their stay.”

Orion tapped his chin. “So, when you say ‘their treatment,’ what are we talking about?”

Ellora nodded. “Riley was primarily focused on the treatment of mental health disorders, um… while most of the records from Riley specifically are redacted or sealed, it’s safe to say that mental health wasn’t as well understood in 1952 as it is today.” She paused to think. “Um, in fewer words… Riley was an asylum.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “And given that context, we’re probably talking about some pretty barbaric treatments. Like… shock therapy?”

Ellora sighed. “Shock therapy, solitary confinement, even lobotomies, which were never formally outlawed in the United States.”

“Wow,” Orion hummed. “And it’s those kinds of barbaric practices and the behaviors that surround them that likely formed the basis for a lot of early slasher films, the idea of the ‘crazy killer,’ right?”

Ellora folded her arms, her eyebrows furrowed. “Um… I don’t know that I would say… that exactly… In fact, when it comes to the treatment of the mentally ill in the United States, the truth is much more horrifying than fiction.” She sighed again. “That being said, most urban legends have some grain of truth to them. I’ve heard of plenty of instances of escapes during its heyday, and even up until its closure.”

Orion, to his credit, managed to keep his composure, though he seemed mildly annoyed at being corrected. “So, patients would get out… would the police just round them up and send them back? What happens?”

Ellora nodded slowly. “Um, sometimes. There were genuine disappearances. I can think of one instance from 1998. There was a young girl who ran away during her treatment and, to my knowledge, she was never found.”

Orion’s gaze moved past her to look out at the edge of town. “Probably some tales and myths that came from that incident alone.”

“It’s possible. This whole thing is like a game of telephone, you know? With every subsequent retelling the truth gets stretched and it becomes harder and harder to get to the heart of what actually happened.”

“Right, and it’s that kind of malleable storytelling that ends up being urban legends. A place like Riley Hospital has to be ripe for that sort of thing.”

Ellora nodded, wide-eyed. “Absolutely. I’ve heard of plenty of folks going to the grounds themselves to see if they can catch a glimpse of the spirits still wandering the grounds after all these years–”

“Uh, and it’s my understanding,” Owen piped up from behind the camera, “that those kinds of people are the types that are all too eager to experience their own ghost story, basically, right?”

Ellora gave a wry smile. “Right, exactly. Um, I should point out that going there is legally considered trespassing. Um, but there are plenty of folks who are comfortable with taking on that kind of risk if it means they can experience the otherworldly.”

Orion raised an eyebrow. “Do they?”

Ellora frowned. “I’ve heard stories, but that’s folklore, right? It’s the oral tradition of regular people in a community and, in this case, Riley.” 

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

Orion stepped toward the camera. “With that in mind, before we head out to Riley Hospital proper, we thought we’d take a walk around and talk to some folks. Find out what stories they’ve heard and maybe what other urban legends they’re aware of.” He shrugged. “But keep in mind, this is a college town, and it’s a Friday night, so…”

“So it turns out that it’s spring break, and I’m having a little bit of a harder time finding people to interview than I originally anticipated. But I’m not ready to give up quite yet.”

A few minutes later, they finally managed to catch someone.

“So, I’m here with Samuel, who’s familiar with Riley, correct?” He held the lapel mic out to the man.

“It’s… Sebastian, but… yes. I’m familiar. I’ve heard of the facilities.”

Orion nodded. “And you’ve also heard about some, maybe, spectral interference here, could you elaborate a little bit?”

“Yeah, I heard Marie Laveau put a curse on the place from beyond the grave. I heard she was petitioned by a patient.”

Orion raised an eyebrow. “And…” He sighed. “So, she was petitioned… while already dead?”

“Correct.”

Owen could tell Orion was holding back a sigh. “And what kind of curse did she put on Riley?”

Sebastian opened his mouth, but seemed at a loss for words. Now, Orion did sigh. “C’mon, Owen, let’s find someone else.”

“Alright, we found somebody else that knows a little bit about Riley. What’s your name?”

The young man, who looked like he was swaying on his feet a little bit—probably drunk—leaned into the mic, then plucked it from Orion’s hand. “Oh… that doesn’t matter too much. I… you guys wanted to hear a ghost story, right?”

Orion bit back whatever he was about to say. “...Yes. Tell us your ghost story.”

“Yeah, I got a ghost story.” He sighed, swaying again, a lazy smile on his face. “So, my sister… ah, she’s… she’s a real nice girl, y’know? She was…” He trailed off. “I’ve– I got– I’ve never been able to talk to people, y’know? Very well, but, my sister… you would’ve liked her. You would’ve!” He took a deep breath. “When we were seniors in high school, my sister, she was only a year younger than me, so we were close in age, seniors in high school. So, she talked to these, like, y’know, sophomore girls she was friends with, and she was like… ‘Hey, I know you two don’t get invited to parties and stuff, so why don’t we hang out in the woods and stargaze and stuff?’ and, like, I could’ve never have done that, but like, they said ‘Yeah, we’ll go out, we’ll go out,’ and, y’know, we were gonna go have fun, and I was, y’know, the whole walk out, and we- we reach Riley, and I was scared because of the stories, y’know, I was so sick. I had to lie down, I was like… ‘Gimme a minute, I’m gonna sit here,’ and I must’ve fallen asleep, I guess, y’know… ‘Wake up!’ y’know, suddenly! And it’s the two girls, and they’re- they’re shaking me, and they’re yelling, ‘It took her! It took her!’”

Orion blinked. “They took– your sister?”

“‘It took her!’” the man continued, seemingly not hearing him.

“The girls took your sister?” Orion repeated, wanting to clarify. 

“I– no!” the man said, shaking his head. “I-I, I stood up, I mean, I had to get up. They were saying– I was– y’know, I asked them again where the sister– they said, ‘It took her!’ They start motioning to follow them, they– they brought me to this tunnel.” He motioned an arch with his hands. “This big tunnel in front of me. Steel. And it’s so dark in there. And the girls, they’re just– they’re yelling in my ear, they’re saying ‘It dragged her in there! It dragged her in there!’”

Orion tilted his head in confusion. “This is a tunnel at Riley Hospital?”

The man frowned. “No! There’s no tunnel at Riley Hospital! Was anyone listening to me? I’ve never seen this tunnel before!” He shook his head. “I turn– like– they’re both– they’re on the ground, and they’re–” The man mimed shaking, as if having a seizure. “Y’know? Just–” He motioned again.

“Like, having a seizure?” Orion asked.

“Yeah!” the man said, breathless. “Like, on the ground! And I’m just like…” he exhaled, almost like he was crying, even though that lazy smile was still on his face. “‘I don’t know what to do!’”

Ellora leaned in close to Orion. “Orion, I think we should call him a cab, or–”

“So I ran into the tunnel,” the man said, lost in his own world now, not hearing Ellora, his words slurring into choked sobs. “And I’m calling my sister’s name, saying, ‘Where are you? Where are you?’ And I hear…” He straightened up, his cries ceasing. His voice lost the slur to his words. “‘Here I am.’” He slumped again, reverting back to before. “It was just like that, y’know? ‘Here I am.’ And I-I-I turn around…” He went silent, staring off into the distance, then let out a quiet cry. “I was so beautiful…”

Ellora stepped off to the side and dialed a number on her phone.

“I ran!” the man sobbed, shaking his head. “I had to! I never saw my sister again…”

“You don’t know what happened to your sister?” Orion asked, his brow furrowed. “What happened to the girls?”

The man stumbled over his words. “I– they were– they woke up, they were– kinda like me, couldn’t– kinda sick? But– we uh, we got back to the car, where we parked, and– by the time we got there they didn’t know who I was. They– they didn’t– they didn’t know me. They didn’t know I had a sister. They didn’t– there was no sister!” He shook his head. “Do you s– do you– do you hear what I’m saying? There was no sister!”

Orion coughed, then reached for the mic, taking it from the man. “No, I get what you’re saying, wow.” He shook his head as Ellora stepped toward the man.

“C’mon, I just called you a cab,” she said, reaching out. “C’mon.” She moved to put an arm around the man’s shoulders to lead him away, but he flinched back, sobbing unintelligibly.

Orion turned to the camera with a tired look. “Maybe we just cut.”

A minute later, the trio watched the man stumble down the sidewalk and disappear around a corner. Orion sighed. “Right, well… Ellora, uh, what do you think? Do any of these ghost stories hold water?”

Ellora frowned, pointing vaguely at where the man had disappeared, then shook her head, turning to Orion as she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “I think it should be your turn to talk now,” she suggested, her voice trembling.

Orion groaned under his breath and turned to the camera. “Okay, uh… well, maybe the three of us will experience our own ghost story tomorrow when we spend all day and night at Riley Hospital.” Here, Ellora glanced up at him with an incredulous look, but he didn’t notice. “Hope you’ll join us for part two, coming soon.” He looked past the camera. “Owen, got your sleeping bag?”

Owen held a thumbs up in front of the camera.

“Good. As always, I’m Orion Aquarius, and this is Aquarius in the Reel World.”

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

Ellora stared at the black screen after the footage cut. Where did this go so wrong?

Chapter Text

“Listen,” Ellora sighed. “I’m not mad, I just– I really, really wish you had said something about this beforehand and… maybe I could’ve figured something out, but–”

Orion pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, well, we’ll figure something out now. How about I get you a hotel? That way, once we get to the evening time, when it’s time to go to bed or whatever, you can just dip out, go to the hotel, we’ll edit around it, no one will know.”

Ellora sighed again. “I live ten minutes away from here, Orion. Why would I need a hotel?”

“You do?” he asked. “Wish Owen would’ve told me that sooner.”

Owen, for his part, was wandering around the area, filming the buildings and traffic lights and whatever else caught his eye, not paying attention to the conversation.

Orion groaned. “Fine, there’s another solution. We just have to figure out what it is.”

“I feel like you’re not hearing me,” Ellora huffed, trying not to sound too annoyed. “I don’t think there’s a solution here. Look, I’m happy to do this kind of thing out here, in public, but I’m not going to an abandoned hospital with you two!”

“What do– ‘you two’? Why’d you say it like that?”

Ellora shook her head. “No offense, I just– I just met you, y’know? And I told you before, going there is legally considered trespassing. I don’t want to spend the night there, I don’t want to spend the night in jail–”

“Jail?” Orion spoke over her. “Come on, it’d be a fine at worst–”

“I have a day job,” Ellora continued, ignoring him. “One I would like to keep, thank you very much.”

“Okay, I understand,” Orion said, holding his hands out placatingly while he tried to curb his irritation. “Give me just a second.” He walked over to where Owen was wandering. “Owen. Owen.”

“Oh, sorry, I was getting some B-roll–” Owen started, but Orion interrupted.

“Did you not send this– did you not send all this information to Ellora in that email?”

Owen blinked. “Uh, what information? I wasn’t paying attention.”

Orion suppressed a growl. “The whole ‘spending the night at Riley’ thing, you know, the cornerstone of this whole project? Why is she just learning about this now?”

Owen blinked, stepping backward. “I-I… um… all I did was the initial contact like you told me to, I think you– you took over from there, right?”

“No, this is the kind of– this is exactly the kind of thing that I have you for! You are my assistant to organize these kinds of–”

“You emailed me, Orion!” Ellora interrupted, approaching the pair. “And you told me that I was meeting you both here. You never mentioned anything about the hospital.”

“It– okay, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. We’re going to figure out a contingency here.”

Ellora sighed. Finally, she spoke, raising an eyebrow at Orion. “Do you have a permit? Do you have insurance?”

Orion waved a hand, annoyed. “Okay, you don’t need to worry about that kind of thing, alright? I am a professional– we are professionals! We’re all professionals here.”

“You are asking me to trespass in an abandoned building!” Ellora exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.

“What I’m asking you to do is act with a modicum of professionalism. We had an agreement. We just need you to do this one last thing–”

“I am not going to listen to you lecture me about ‘professionalism,’ Orion, you are being unprofessional!”

Orion scoffed. “I am not being unprofessional! I– look, I’m not mad at you, I just care about this project a lot, and from my point of view, you are the only thing that is keeping us from reaching the finish line.”

Ellora glared. “Well, isn’t that convenient. Do you think I just fell off the turnip truck? No!”

Orion stared. “...What?”

“I am not going to be pressured like this!”

“I’m not trying to pressure you, I am trying to get the job done! You don’t want to get the job done!”

“Then you’ll have to do this job without me.” She turned on her heel and marched away.

Owen jogged after her. “Uh, Ellora, wait, wait, wait, uh– I need your mic–”

She jolted. “Oh, sorry! Sorry.” She unclipped the mic from her shirt and handed it to him.

Owen sighed. “Listen, don’t worry about him, I mean, he gets a bit worked up sometimes–”

“You think?” she hissed.

He winced. “Yeah, um– but uh– he really does mean well, and he just really wants to make it work, I know, um… but just… sleep on it, I guess? And if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine, you know, no pressure… we’ll work around it, we’ve done it before. Um, so… but if you change your mind, you know, just give me a call and we’ll– we’ll take it from there, okay?”

“Okay.”

He nodded. “Um, so I can get your mic–”

“Yeah, here.” She handed it to him, then turned and headed across the street without looking back.

“Thanks for your help, we really appreciate it,” he called after her. 

“Where is she going?” Orion demanded as he came up to stand beside Owen. Owen shrugged and turned to him. “Okay, get that shot– don’t look at me! So, we’ll say that, uh… she called us back, she said she couldn’t do it, it was too haunted or whatever, and that’s how we’ll save this episode.”

“This right here?” Owen asked, aiming the camera.

“Yes, just put text over it, or whatever.”

Once Ellora was gone, Orion quietly packed up the equipment while fuming. 

“You ready to head back?” Owen asked.

“Yeah, I mean, what else are we supposed to do?”

Owen sighed. “Um, I’ll get all the footage together tonight and do, like, a rough edit for you. Just take a look at it in the morning.”

Orion nodded absently. “Yeah, okay. Good.”

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

“I’m gonna grab the camera bag and then we should be good to go,” Owen commented, standing up to get the bag. “Have you heard from Ellora at all?”

Orion didn’t look at him. “No, I think it’s safe to say I burned that bridge,” he said flatly.

Owen frowned. “We’ll figure it out. You ready?”

Orion stood. “Yeah.”

Owen glanced at the camera. “Oops, I didn’t realize I was recording. Hold on.”

“I think the turn off is coming up here, if I remember right,” Owen directed, pointing ahead.

Orion nodded, hitting the blinker. “Yeah, it’s either just over the hill or beyond it.”

The trails in Riley Park were well-worn, and the autumn weather meant the trees were mostly stripped of their leaves, so they towered over with spindly limbs reaching into the sky.

“Okay, this is the big tree where we turn off, right?” Orion asked, turning to look behind him at Owen, who was filming.

“Uh… yes, I think so. It looks familiar.”

Orion nodded. “Yeah, because this is the weird one that splits into three.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

Owen glanced to the side and pointed. “So we cut through here, and we go down that hill and back up and that’s where you can start to see the hospital through the trees.” He gestured. “After you.”

Orion led the way to the hospital, which was closer than Owen remembered. He panned the camera to look up at it, getting a good shot for the episode. “Okay, we can keep moving.”

Orion turned to look at him. “It does look way worse, right? I’m not crazy.”

Owen nodded, looking back at the hospital. “Yeah, it does.” He shrugged. “I mean, granted, it’s been, what… fifteen… years since we’ve been here? More?”

Orion nodded, then gestured vaguely to the walls. “Have fun with the graffiti.”

Owen grimaced. “Yeah, I’m trying not to show too much of it.” The last thing they wanted was inappropriate drawings, slurs, or swastikas that had been drawn on the walls making their way into the video. “Uh, here’s the front, up here, if you wanted to go ahead and do the introduction while we’re here.”

Orion nodded, giving the entrance a once-over as they approached. “Yeah, uh… we’ll just start with ‘this is the patient housing,’ ‘she mentioned,’ yadda yadda yadda, and then over there we’ll do something–”

“That’s where the actual hospital is, right? Over there?” Owen asked, following where Orion was pointing.

“Yeah, we’ll– we’ll figure it out.”

Orion stopped at the entrance and looked over the script in his binder for several seconds, nodding to himself. Owen held up the camera. “You good?”

Orion mouthed a few more words to himself, then nodded. “Yes.” He tossed the binder to the side and cleared his throat.

Owen lifted the camera to look up at the building. “Okay, I’ll start up here.” He slowly panned the camera down toward Orion.

“We’ve arrived. Riley Hospital,” Orion said, gesturing behind him. “This is where Owen and I are going to be spending the day and night. This is the larger of the two buildings on the property, the one that Ellora told us was patient housing.” He pointed. “A little bit over that way is the treatment facility. We’ll check that out, but first, let’s go inside.”

Owen followed Orion into the husk of a building, glancing around at the walls. “There’s not too much graffiti here.” He looked to his left and rolled his eyes at the design on the wall. “Oh. Well.” He looked around at the ground, then stopped. “Oh, wait. Come here.” He knelt down, brushing some debris out of the way to reveal a small tape in a case. “I don’t know how I saw this.”

“Huh, no way,” Orion commented as he came to Owen's side.

“It’s a, uh– is it? Yeah, it’s a mini-DV tape,” Owen told him, brushing the case off. “Which I think is what we shot on before.”

Orion snorted. “This might be one of ours.”

Owen laughed, shrugging. “Who knows? I wish I had a way to play it… but I don’t. Otherwise I would take it.”

Orion nodded, turning the tape over in his hands. “Cool.” He tossed the tape to the ground haphazardly and kept walking.

While filming a shot of Orion walking down one of the halls, Owen’s phone began vibrating. He waved to Orion to keep walking and took his phone out of his pocket, smiling at the caller ID. “Hey… yeah, yeah, we’re out here… we just got here… mhm… yeah, that’s still the plan. We got sleeping bags in the car. We’ll get them later… mhm… no, I don’t think they’ll help,” he chuckled. “I don’t think I’ll sleep much… that’s okay, don’t worry… mhm, yeah, I’ll text you… and call you, right, later tonight… love you too. Bye.”

“‘Love you too, bye,’” Orion teased in a sickly sweet tone. Owen laughed, embarrassed. “Was that Kara?”

Owen nodded. “Yeah.”

“Everything good?”

“Yeah, she was just calling to make sure that we made it out here and weren’t arrested or anything.”

Orion smirked. “Nah, we still got it.”

Owen grinned and fist bumped him. “Yeahhh.” He gestured at the hall. “That looked fine, by the way. We don’t have to shoot it again.”

They made their way to a place on the second floor that had a huge hole in the ceiling above it. Orion pointed. “Was it this side or that side that we shot on the third floor last time?”

“I think it was this side?” Owen said thoughtfully. “But, I mean, the floor was there that time.”

“It’s still here,” Orion said, raising his eyebrows.

Owen laughed. “It’s just down there!” he added, pointing the camera to look at the collapsed floor all the way down on the first floor.

Orion squinted. “Maybe let’s–”

“I’m gonna get away from– yeah.”

“Let’s go down to the ground,” Orion finished as they both backed away from the hole.

They passed a set of crumpled stairs leading up to the third floor, and Orion cautiously stepped onto one of them.

“Careful,” Owen cautioned.

“Yeah, that’s– nope,” Orion said, hopping back down. “Ground floor’s fine.”

As they made their way down the stairs back to the first level, Orion kicked some debris away. “I think that’s enough in here. Let’s head over to the treatment facility, take a look around, and then we’ll come back in here and do more of the narration stuff in a little bit.”

Owen nodded as they headed out the door. “Okay.”

The sun was in the process of sinking down, not touching the horizon yet but casting long shadows along the path as they walked. Owen pointed at the building they were approaching. “Here’s the front, yeah. Do you want to go ahead and do the introduction for this location out here now?”

Orion tilted his head to consider the building. “Let’s hold off for now, because this actually looks even worse than the other building. There might be something inside that we can reference to, or come back around… and also, I just want to get a lay of the land while we still have some light.”

Owen shrugged. “Alright.”

The interior of the treatment facility was really just a squarish maze of open hallways and debris-filled rooms, the glass walls of the hallways having been long blown out. Glass crunched under their feet as they walked and Owen pointed ahead of them. “Watch out for that stuff hanging.”

Orion ducked under it, patting the pipe that could’ve knocked him in the head. “This one’s right at eye level.”

Owen glanced behind him, then stopped. “Wait, wait. I think…” He turned the camera to face down the hallway they had just gone through. “I think– yeah! Yeah, it is! This is where you did– uh, we shot a part of Story Thieves right here!”

“We did?” Orion asked curiously.

“You called it your– you called it your ‘money shot,’” Owen reminded him. 

“I called it my what?”

“Yeah, uh– you had Kiel standing right here against what was a wall. You had him sitting here looking all pensive. And you shot it back through here.”

Orion nodded. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t recognize it.” He moved toward where the wall used to be and pretended to lean against it, making a concerned expression to mimic Kiel’s face in the shot.

Owen chuckled. “And he said some kind of line, I don’t remember what it was.”

Orion exhaled. “I have no idea. I am positive it was very annoying and awful, though.”

“Yeah, it looked just like this!” Owen said, zooming in.

“You remember we got caught after this, right?”

“We did?”

“Yeah, a guy in a truck came up like right over here,” he said, pointing. “And he was yelling at us, so I went out to go and talk to him and try to like, y’know, get him to leave us alone, and he had a shotgun in his passenger seat.”

“He did?!”

“Yes!”

Owen moved toward where Orion pointed, squinting. “Okay, yeah, seeing this now, I remember the guy in the truck, but I don’t remember the shotgun part.”

Orion nodded. “Yeah, so we left really fast after that, and I told him we would never come back, and now I’m a liar.”

Owen chuckled. “I mean, you told the truth for, y’know, a decade? Decade and a half?”

“Not bad,” Orion said dryly.

“Good record,” Owen joked.

Upon further exploration, they found a wall that had a huge hole in it. The bricks had been busted outward, revealing the inside of what was some kind of maintenance or boiler room. “I don’t remember this room, do you?” Orion asked as he stepped inside.

Owen glanced around. “Uh… no, it doesn’t look familiar to me.”

“It’s the exit,” Orion said, pointing to graffiti that said “exit” on the wall pointing down at a hole in the ground where pipes disappeared into the darkness.

“Somehow I don’t think that’s true,” Owen said, panning the camera down to look into the maintenance tunnel. “Wait, hold on, let me get my…” he muttered to himself, taking his flashlight out and shining it down the tunnel. “You wanna go in?”

Orion gave him an incredulous look. “No. No, I do not. I’m not getting stuck in there.”

“Yeah, I’m not going in there either.” Owen clicked off the flashlight. “I just wanted to see what you’d say.”

“Hey, what if I said yes?”

Owen turned to raise an eyebrow at his director. “Uh, you’d be going in there alone.”

Orion nodded, looking over the graffiti on the walls. “Got it.” He knelt down to see through some short gaps in the walls that led into side rooms connected to the one they were in. “Have we been in these rooms yet?”

“This one through here?” Owen asked, kneeling down next to him. “I don’t think so.”

“This one’s kind of gross, but this one is pretty clear and open. We might be able to spend the night there.”

Owen shrugged. “Yeah. We can try to walk a way around there. I don’t think I’d fit through that gap, so let’s see if we can find another way…”

“Let’s find an entrance,” Orion declared, rising to his feet and turning to leave the maintenance room.

Moving through the hallways, Orion paused and pointed. “Hey, check out this hallway. Look at the rooms, what do you notice?”

Owen shrugged. “Uh… I mean, it’s dark, there’s no windows. What about it?”

Orion nodded emphatically. “Yeah, it’s dark! It’ll be good for the scripted encounter.” He started walking down the hallway, checking out each individual room.

“The what?” Owen asked, not sure he was hearing correctly.

“You know, the scripted encounter. Like in the middle of the night when we’re exploring, we’re contacted by a ghost or spirits or whatever.”

Owen shook his head. “By– by ‘scripted encounter,’ you mean faking it?”

Orion sighed. “What I mean is that I don’t want to leave here empty-handed.”

Owen opened his mouth, then closed it. “I mean, that just seems… dishonest to me.”

“You don’t really think we’re going to be experiencing something supernatural without it, do you?”

“Well, no, but it just seems kind of manipulative to the viewers.”

Orion gave him a look. “What did you think we were going to do out here? Just spend the night and have nothing happen?” Before Owen could respond, Orion continued. “Look, I get what you’re saying, I do. But… we don’t have to use it, but I’d rather have it and not need it than not have it and end up with the most boring episode ever. Right? So… we’re not making high art, we just need–”

“...Need the eyeballs, yeah,” Owen finished. “Okay, well, I mean, no harm in looking. Go ahead, I’m right behind you.”

“We’ll just look,” Orion assured him.

“Okay,” Owen conceded as they entered one of the rooms. It was large, empty, and had a sliver of sunlight beaming through a crack in the seam between the far wall and the ceiling.

“Not bad,” Orion told him. “It’s like the one room in this entire building that’s not covered in graffiti. It was meant to be.” He looked around, glancing at the ruined corner of the ceiling. “So, we’ll film a little bit in here now while the sunlight is still in, and then tonight when it gets dark, we’ll come in here and do our scripted thing.” He stopped when he noticed Owen frowning at the camera.

“Hold on a minute,” Owen told him, squinting at the screen.

“What’s up?”

“The screen on the camera froze for a second.”

“Has it done that before?”

“Uh, once, I think. It was when the SD card was almost full, actually, now that I think about it.” He set the camera bag down. “Let me put this one in, and take the other one from the bag. Gimme just a second.”

After changing the SD card out, he zipped up the bag, and Orion glanced at him. “Is it good?”

“Seems like it.”

“Okay, good. I cannot afford a new camera, by the way. Um… so, anyway, we’ll come back in here this evening, and that’s when we’ll sh–”

He was cut off by a crashing noise that echoed through the hallways. Owen jerked the camera toward the sound. “What was that?”

“I’m not sure…” Orion muttered. “I really hope there’s not somebody else walking around with us.” He headed toward the door.

“Are you gonna check it out?”

“Of course.” He looked back and forth down the hall. “I think it came from this way…?”

They walked carefully down the hall, looking down each corridor to see if something was amiss.

“See anything?” Owen asked.

Orion shook his head. “Maybe across the courtyard?”

“Yeah, sounded like it was kind of far away.”

As they entered the courtyard with its overgrown trees taking up the center of the facility, Orion glanced back at Owen. “Might’ve even been a roof falling in.” Owen hummed noncommittally, feeling the hair on the back of his neck prickle as if they were being watched.

They crossed through the courtyard to the other set of hallways, and Orion nodded. “Oh, okay. Over here.”

“What?”

Orion pointed. “I bet this door was just leaning up against what used to be its frame and then wind came through and knocked it over.”

Owen nodded, zooming in on the door in question. “Yeah, or a person came through and knocked it over.”

Orion nodded, then cleared his throat. “You ready?”

“Ready for what–”

“This is security!” Orion yelled.

Owen chuckled. “Okay.”

“Now, whoever’s in here, I’m only gonna warn you once!” Orion continued. “Nicely, but only once! You are trespassing! You will be found, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!” Owen hid muffled giggles behind his hand.

“Good?” Owen asked after Orion was done. “Okay, yeah.”

Another crash froze both of them in their tracks. Owen frowned. “It sounds like it– it came from where we just were over there.”

“Yeah, or near it,” Orion said, staring at the area the noise had come from and squinting against the light of the sunset.

Owen glanced down, then grimaced, breaking into a run. “Oh, crap!”

“What?”

“I left the camera bag in there!”

Owen raced through the halls, hearing Orion behind him. He found the room they had been in and sighed in relief when he saw the camera bag sitting against the wall.

“Is it in there?” Orion asked.

“Yes!”

“Okay,” Orion sighed in relief. “You scared me.” 

Owen hefted the bag over his shoulder again. “Phew. Alright. I scared myself!”

“On the plus side, our encounter room is still secure,” Orion commented.

“Yeah, if there’s people here, I don’t want them running off with this. Just give me a second to catch my breath.” He leaned against the wall and coughed, then paused, looking out into the hall. “Wait.” He stepped into the hallway, frowning. “Wait, c’mere!”

“What?” Orion asked, following him. “What’s up?”

Owen shone the flashlight down both ends of the hall. “Wh– it’s dark.”

Orion immediately understood. “There’s no way, it was like five p.m.–”

“I-I mean, the sun was setting, but it shouldn’t be dark yet, right?” He turned back to Orion. “What time is it?”

Orion stared blankly at his phone. “Ten fifty-two p.m.”

Owen’s brain took several seconds to process. “There’s– there’s no way, hold on.” He held up his watch to the beam of the flashlight.

10:52 p.m.

<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>

“What happened?” Owen asked nervously as they headed through the woods back to where they’d parked. “Did– did we pass out? I-I didn’t feel lightheaded, did you?”

“No, not at all.”

Owen sighed. “We need to get out of here. This could be something like a– like a gas leak that we’re breathing in!”

Orion shook his head. “This place has been condemned for decades, what gas?”

“Natural gas!” Owen protested. “It comes out of the ground!”

Orion shook his head. “Uh-uh. I think this is something different. We should stay.”

“No! Stay?! Wh– no! Something weird just happened, we should go!”

“Exactly!” Orion interrupted. “Something weird just happened, and we got it on camera. Think about it! We should stay the night! What if something else happens? We might have definitive proof of…” he trailed off. “...The paranormal, I don’t know!”

Owen backed up. “What if one of us drops dead? Like, from whatever we’re breathing? No, we should definitely leave.”

“Owen, come on! Don’t be dramatic!” Orion protested. 

“Nope. No! Uh-uh! We need to get out of here!”

“Alright, so just keep filming. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Okay, I am,” Owen reassured him. “Wait, hold on, I’m going to turn on the camera light so I can see better, free up one of my hands.”

“No, don’t– don’t use the camera light!” Orion chastised him. “We have the flashlights, that’s gonna kill the camera battery just like that.” 

“Well, we’re leaving anyway!”

Orion gestured vaguely. “Humor me!”

“Okay, fine.” He sighed. “Go ahead, I’m gonna call Kara and tell her we’re coming back tonight.” He sighed, following behind Orion as the phone rang, then stopped in his tracks. 

Their flashlights illuminated the front of the treatment facility. The treatment facility they had just left.