The Call (A Marble Hornets inspired story)

Chapter 7: Meeting

I look at my watch. 6:25pm. I know Jay's ended up becoming nocturnal, and i'm not going to go to that tunnel in the middle of the night. Not to mention being able to avoid Jay at any point is an added bonus. I get a bit nervous when I remember how he waited in that school for hours waiting for me to leave Benedict Hall. Is he going to do that again? I hope not. I wanted to meet him at around 1-2:00pm but he wanted it to be later. I eventually agreed to meet him at 6:40 so i've got 15 minutes to get there. I check my bag again. Flashlight, pills, phone, pocket knife, water, and...why the hell is my camera in here? I left it in the car when I went to find Brian.. I take it out and throw it onto the bed. I don't want to get back into the habit of filming myself everywhere I go. I walk over to the door, grabbing the keys and Jay's hat. I leave and look at the room next to me. The door's unlocked so I open it and look inside. I knew he'd book this room. Jay's ended up falling asleep on the chair next to his bed just barely holding his still recording camera. I put his cap on the side and leave. I don't want him accusing me of stealing something I didn't.

I leave the hotel and go into the forest. God I hate it here. Why does it have to be the tunnel? Why not my hotel room? or even the abandoned school or something? Why the forest? I look at the tunnel, then at my watch. 6:39. One minute early. I walk towards it, getting startled by the alarm on my phone going off at 6:40. I turn it off and turn the corner. I look and expect to see Seth, but no one's there. I take a few steps in and look around. It's just as creepy as I remember it. "Hello there, Tim. It's been a while, hasn't it?" I hear someone say behind me. I turn around and come eye to eye with a skull like mask only a few inches away from my face. I yelp and fall backwards, scrambling away from the figure. He starts laughing at my reaction. "You always were quite jumpy, weren't you Tim." Is his response.He seems to have a similar voice changer to Brian since his voice has a slight static undertone to it. "S-seth?" I stutter out. Hoping this was some sort of sick prank. "Yes?" He replies, tilting his head. "I..What the hell is going on?" I ask. He said he'd give me answers. Not scare the fuck out of me. "Ah, yes. How could I be so rude?" He says, walking over to me. I push myself backwards from him but he catches up and grabs my arm, pulling me up to my feet. "Now, I said i'd give you answers. And i'm going to stick to that." He says, pulling me towards the middle of the tunnel. "Now, you're probably wondering about the whole deal with your other side, the influence, and pretty much everything on the video, right?" He continues, nearly too fast for me to understand him. I nod, staring at his mask. I have never seen it before. Did he make it? "So, where do you want to begin?" He says. 

"W-What's with the mask, Seth?" I say without thinking. Fuck, I shouldn't have said that. I probably offended him. "Ah, yes. My mask. Well, it was meant to be Jays, but the ol' operator couldn't get hold of him. Quite a shame really. However it would be a waste to just throw it out, so I decided to take it." He says, seeming quite proud. "Speaking of which, how about we talk about that creature you are so desperate to get rid of. So first things first, we call him The Operator. Now that's sorted, second thing is that he has power beyond what you can imagine. One of which is being able to release the part of you that most people never let out. That's why it's called 'influence'. The thing is, because you've been living with The Operator stalking you your whole life, you have become slightly immune to it, meaning your mind has created a sort of defence against it in the way of 'Operator Sickness'. This is the coughing, seizures, and other things you experience when near The Operator. Hence, 'Operator Sickness'." He explains, as though he was an expert on it. I look at him for a second, then at the floor to take in the mass of information he just said to me. "Now, got all that? Good. Next subject is your other side. Now, when you're being influenced, your whole personality changes. It's like you're a completely different person. You aren't a different person, but you won't act the same if you're being influenced. You will become a lot more aggressive and lose the ability to tell who is who. You basically become a mindless puppet, doing whatever the puppet master, or in this case The operator, tells you to. Now, here's the interesting bit: Because you have this slight immunity, there's a chance you will still have your morals and recognition in tact. This is what happened when you kidnapped Jessica and nearly Jay. You were influenced but knew what The Operator wanted with Jessica, so you was able to save her. However, as you can guess, you lost control soon after once The Operator figured out what happened." I look at him for a second. How the hell did he figure this all out? Was he watching me the whole time...?

 "So, what else is there..?" He asks genuinely. "If it's only me with this..'immunity'..Why are the others affected..?" I ask. "Ok. So, maybe I wasn't completely honest with you when I said the immunity was because you were stalked your whole life. Everyone gets it. It's just because you have had it for so long, it's developed more. Meaning the symptoms are a lot more...noticable. The coughing will become worse, the seizures will happen more often, you'll become a lot more paranoid, you'll hallucinate more...But the pills you're taking prevent that. They stop the symptoms because that's what they're meant to do." He finishes, holding up a half empty bottle of pills. I look in my pocket for mine but they're not there. "How the fuck did you..?" I begin, extremely confused as to how he could've gotten them. "Don't worry about that. But that is why we wanted them so badly. They help with the sickness, and with The Operator. He hates appearing in front of cameras, that's why you don't see him that often. And why Brian and I have been able to survive for so long. The combination of the pills and camera are enough to keep him away. But he hates that. He hates that people can fight him. That's why we keep a camera on us at all times. But we can't get the pills easily. We'll take desperate measures to get them, like Brian did by breaking into your house. He didn't want to do it. He had to." He answers, throwing me my pills back, but not after pouring half into his pocket. "I'll take these as my payment. I need to go now, so..any final questions?" He asks. I think about everything he said and notice he kept saying 'we'. That's a good question, right? "Who's 'we'?" I ask. He laughs. "I knew you'd ask that. You're smart, Tim. Smarter than Jay. But to put a long story short..." He trails off, signalling for someone behind me to come out. I turn around and watch as Brian, holding a camera, steps into view with his mask on. "We are ToTheArk. I know you won't remember this, Tim. and I had a feeling you wouldn't bring the camera I gave you. So I got Brian to record everything. All the information i've told you tonight...-" He walks over to Brian and take somethingfrom him. "Is on this tape." He throws it to me. I grab it and look at it. It's a normal tape but the case has that symbol on it.I flinch at the sight of it. "Sorry to have to do this to ya, Tim. But we can't just let you leave. It would be too risky." He says, holding up my pills again. I search my pockets again and they aren't there. "H-hang on, y-you're not going to-" "As I said, Tim. I'm sorry." He repeats, cutting me off and handing Brian a pill, taking one himself. As if on cue,'The Operator' appears in front on me. I fall to my knees coughing as they watch. I taste and feel blood running down the side of my mouth. My vision starts to blur and I can't make out who's who anymore. The pain in my head is unbearable. "Oh, and before you ask: Yes. He can choose who to affect. But that's only so people he's already controlling don't revert back to normal." I hear someone say. I don't know whether it was Seth or Brian, but it was one of them. I see the ground spin and pass out just after they say that.