Work Text:
The videotape begins with the sounds of movement. Soon enough, the face of the man appears. There isn't enough light to actually see what's happening, but one thing is clear — the man isn't happy to be where he is. He constantly looks back over his shoulder. His steps are quick and uneven, and he's breathing in short, ragged bursts.
The good fifteen seconds pass before he finally says something.
"Okay, so..." The first attempt doesn't get very far. The man trails off before even beginning. "Fuck, it feels so strange to record this."
A nervous grin appears. The camera shakes violently.
"I'm starting again. Hi. I'm filming this mostly for my future self, for several reasons, so I don't really feel the need to introduce myself. I also don't feel the urge to explain the case I've been working on, but..." He lets out a nervous laugh. "I've seen some crazy stuff lately, so..."
"A few da..." The man stutters. "Some time ago I found information about a series of mysterious deaths. People were being found dead in their own houses and apartments. The official cause was heart attacks, but for a lot of people that didn't make any sense. Of course you... I... we... damn..."
He lowers his head for a moment.
"I'm not sure how to address my future self. Okay, we decided to investigate because we can't stay out of other people's business. At first, it wasn't so bad. We found a few clues that led us to a specific place - a place I wish I'd never entered."
For the entire time he'd been speaking, the man's eyes had remained fixed on the path ahead. For the first time, he looks directly into the camera.
His eyes are wide open, his pupils unnaturally constricted. The camera light finally reveals something of the place around him, reflected faintly in his eyes.
A gray, seemingly endless corridor.
The walls are rough, scarred with deep holes here and there. Everything about the place looks ancient. Throughout his entire explanation, the man hasn't turned in a different direction even once, and the reflection offers no hint of another direction to go.
Only one narrow path stretches ahead.
"I've been trying to find the exit for at least ten minutes," the man says suddenly, changing the subject. "And the crazy part is... I'm not even sure there is one. I've been walking down the same hallway this entire time. You might think that if I somehow got in here, there has to be a way out. But here's the thing..."
He looks into the camera again, his eyes suspiciously wet.
"I didn't enter this... whatever it is. I never did. I was somewhere completely different - the place I was talking about."
The trembling in his hands becomes worse. The camera can barely focus anymore.
"It was an open space. It wasn't... this box. There were roughly two walls, a-and..."
The camera finally slips from his hands, landing face-first with a loud crack. A fracture appears directly across the middle of the lens.
Nothing but pitch black surrounds it, pushed back only by the camera's light.
A hand reaches into view, picks it up, and presses it tightly against the man's chest.
For several seconds, the only sounds are his horrifying breathing and hurried footsteps. Thankfully, only his footsteps.
Without his voice covering them, every step echoes through the corridor.
Beyond that.
Nothing.
Absolute silence.
Silence that has followed him for the past ten minutes.
"It was like..." The camera is still pointed away. "I-I closed my eyes... no, not even closed It was like I blinked... and I was here."
He struggles to steady his breathing.
"I was lying on the ground. I also had a backpack. Of course I'm not that stupid to go somewhere in the middle of nowhere unprepared. I had this camera with me, and my bag was on my shoulder."
A pause.
"And when I ended up here... the bag was gone."
Another pause.
"But the camera was still here."
"It's like..." He laughs weakly. "I know I sound crazy, but nothing is crazier than this."
A hand appears in front of the lens, pointing into the darkness.
"It's like something wanted me to record this. To record myself. To tell my story on camera."
Compared to before, this one was quite protected from someone hearing it..
After several seconds of silence, the camera finally turns back toward his face.
"As I said earlier, this tape is for my future self. In one case, it's to document everything that's happened to me. In the other, to remind myself what happened. Because if I already forgot how I ended up here...what's stopping me from forgetting again?"
His eyes now show determination, though it's slowly fading.
"And if someone else except me, Lomedy, found this tape," His expression hardens. "Throw this shit in the nearest lake so it gets damaged and never gonna be repaired, because if I'm not going to make it, this tape should remain here in a godforsaken place, and whatever moved this tape to the area where someone can find it-it didn't have good intentions. The same goes with someone uploading it somewhere because if I'm going to make it, I'll make sure no one will see this, and if you see this on the internet, close it and pray that whatever goal the uploader had isn't satisfied."
Silence fills the air for several terrifying seconds.
"I have never thought I would ever say this on camera, but I've never felt so scared in my life. I don't feel my fingers at all. I have this lump in my throat and a heavy weight in my chest. I have been in this "almost-run" temp for a while now. I want to slow down, but I can't, because I feel like someone is watching me, like someone is constantly behind my back. I can barely look at the camera because I see myself and what's behind me. Each second I am here, I want to look behind, and I'm terrified of this because what if I see something? What if there is something watching me? What the fuck am I going to do about it?"
Thankfully for him, the corridor behind him remains empty as much as the camera light allowed to see, of course.
"At this point, I don't know what else to say," Lomedy lets out a dry laugh. "But if I stop talking, I'm gonna lose my mind. There are absolutely no sounds, so I guess I'm underground..." He shakes his head. "Not that it really helps."
Lomedy suddenly freezes and becomes a little too excited for someone in his situation.
"There's a junction. There's a path to the le-," Suddenly Lomedy goes silent, stopped halfway to turn left, peeking from the corner, his facial expression shows confusion and pure terror. "What the fuck am I looking at?" He whispers and slowly turns the camera towards it.
The corridor leading to the left had unexpectedly bright light, with the source of it somewhere at the end. Dirty gray walls changed to almost snowy white. But the most disturbing is what was standing in the middle of the corridor.
The figure had no colors except the all-consuming black; it did not cast a shadow.
Due to the quiet noises, it seemed like Lomedy tried to slowly go away, but at some point the creature's head turned in his direction, which made him run. Loud steps sound more like hits on the ground.
The camera is forgotten, pointed at the wall, its image overwhelmed by violent interference. Only his trembling grip and his fingers remain visible through the static.
Then—
The camera crashes to the floor.
It points upward.
Nothing is visible.
No sound is made.
A few moments later, the camera emits a warning.
The battery is almost dead.
The tape ends.