The Jaybird Flies Free | MH Rewrite

Chapter 2

Jay spent most of his time searching through the tapes. When he wasn't, he was either eating or sleeping. It had already started to take an effect on his health. He was finding it hard to sleep, especially when he would get sick. Despite this, he continued to go through the tapes as much as he could. Even as he moved into a new apartment, he couldn't keep himself away from the tapes, going back to continue watching them when he needed to pack.

On one tape, Alex is laying on his bed, probably trying to sleep. He turns over and grabs the camera while getting up. He goes into his hallway and turns off the light, then walks downstairs. He checks outside his house, then goes back to bed with the camera pointed at him. A shadow rolled over him and a breeze disturbed the pages above his bed. Jay does as always, posting the clip to Youtube and updating the new Marble Hornets twitter he had recently made.

A couple days later, Jay is finishing up moving into his new apartment when he gets a notification. Totheark has posted another video response. The video features two flashing white lines and some weirdly distorted audio. At the end, words flashed up on screen and the video cut. The words read "watching you". Jay sped up the audio and listened again. It was a woman's voice that said "Alex" four times. The whole message was "Alex watching you".

Jay stared at the screen of his laptop. Alex was..... Watching him? That couldn't be right. He hadn't seen Alex in years, there was no way he could know about the channel, let alone be watching it. Even if he was, why hadn't he reached out to Jay to say he was alright? Jay shook his head, as if it would clear the thoughts from his head. Totheark had to be mistaken or just playing a trick on him. That was it.

Soon, Jay found himself sick again. This one lasted a week. A week of him doing nothing but going through tapes to find something to post for Entry #12. He had told his twitter followers of this sickness, receiving many " get well" wishes from them. While sitting at home watching tapes, Jay finds a tape where Alex is acting more like himself. There is heavy audio distortion and some visual tears. Brian and Alex are trying to film some scenes but the faceless man shows up in the background. Alex appears unafraid compared to before and goes to get the man off set.

It must have been pretty early on in the recording seeing as Alex didn't recognize the man. Jay posts it to Youtube and updates twitter, then goes back to his life.A week later, totheark responds with a video titled "Impurity". Zeroes flash over the screen in a code that cuts to a live feed of a rainstorm and a house. Nothing much happens, except for the word 'operator' fading in at the bottom for a brief moment. A wall of zeroes pop up with random letters scattered about. Using the zero in the place of the missing letter, Jay got the phrase "There was more". More to what, the video? Jay couldn't figure out what it meant. He decided to move on, more concerned about getting through the tapes. After all, he was almost finished with them.

To Jay's surprise, he was in one of the next tapes. The tape picked up with Alex talking to Jay about how the camera's battery was low. Past Jay goes to get a spare battery out of Alex's car while Alex continues on. There is heavy distortion as Alex finds a weird symbol in an old building. Then he jogs around the building and comes face to face with the faceless man. Alex takes off running and the camera battery dies. Jay does the usual upload routine. Then he goes to bed. Soon, totheark has a new response ready. Jay sighs, sitting down with his laptop to watch. He almost wishes he hadn't.

Someone stands at the edge of the woods, recording his past self. Past Jay reaches into the car to try and find a battery, then looks in the trunk. The whole time, the camera is focused, observing him. Once Jay leaves back into the woods, whoever was recording ran off. A frame pops up quickly at the end with the text "Where is the ark" in all caps. The first Jay thinks is of the person who was recording. How had he not noticed? He tended to be oblivious, sure, but he could normally tell when someone was looking at him. Jay sighs, opting to ignore the video almost entirely besides confirming on twitter that it was him in the video.

Regardless, it doesn't matter. It happened over three years ago. Jay once again returns to the tapes. There are only a few left. The first one Jay plays is footage of the camera pointed at Alex's bedroom door, which is cracked open, light seeping in. About fifteen seconds pass before the faceless man is slipping into Alex's room. Alex jolts awake and cracks his door again, then goes back to sleep. Thirty-two uneventful minutes pass before Alex changes the tape. The final tape starts straight off with Alex bleeding from the head.It holds on the image, with Alex unmoving. Then, an alarm goes off and Alex turns off the camera.

That was it. No final words, no hints about anything besides the fact that Alex is in danger and just like that Jay was decided. He was going to find Alex, no matter what. First, this meant finding the other cast members. Jay's first thought was to try social media but it appears none of the crew had any, not even Facebook. Next, he tried to just google their names but nothing popped up at first. When he searched Tim's name, he found a job application page where he had posted his new phone number. Jay smiled happily for the lucky break. Jay dialed the number.

"Hello?" came the voice of Tim through the speakers.

"Hey Tim, this is Jay. We both worked on his student film Marble hornets," Jay spoke.

"Oh yeah, I remember that. So, what's up Jay?"

"I'm trying to finish what's left of the film and I was hoping we could meet to talk about it."

"Really?" Tim questions. "Sure, I'm free in two weeks, does that work?"

"Yeah, thanks. See you then, Tim." Jay hangs up. He may just be able to find Alex.