Tim was unsure how long he had kept his hands under the icy running water. Long enough for them to go numb, at any rate. But he couldn't bring himself to turn the water off just yet, finding the soft sound of running water oddly relaxing. It filled up the silence of the small bathroom, muting the noises of the hallway outside. Tim had even managed to ignore his location, forgetting for a few moments that cameras in college campus bathrooms are frowned upon and that anyone could walk in. A cough startled him out of stupor, jerking his hands out of cold stream involuntarily, bringing him back to reality. A dull headache bubbled in the back of his head, threatening to become something more painful later. Cupping his tingling hands, Tim brought a palmful of cold water to his face, patting his cheeks several times as if it would help him feel less foggy. There was a stack of paper towels, starchy and cheap, which Tim used to dry off his face. Another cough, amplified in the closed in space. Tim cupped his hands once again, drinking from the bathroom sink. Nothing new. Increasingly common, just like the headaches. Tim turned the water off. The loss of it's noise made the bathroom feel less safe somehow. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Tim stepped back, glancing at himself in the large, rectangular mirror. He looked like hell. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Tim exited the bathroom, attempting to appear as inconspicuous as possible as he crossed the lobby and pushed open the heavy doors.
It was early afternoon, sunny out yet still cold. Probably cold enough to warrant wearing something heavier than a button up flannel. At least, that's what Jay would have told him. He always kept an extra jacket in his backseat, insisting Tim wear it if Jay thought he looked cold. Jay's jackets never fit him properly, but Tim knew that it made Jay feel better if he wore them. Jay had cared like that. Unconscious of his own movements, Tim looked around, finding his feet on a steady path that he had made exactly once before. To Jay's car. He wanted to stop himself, but couldn't quite tell his legs to stop, turn around, go anywhere but there. He had gone there after viewing the tape left in Jay's camera. After he had disappeared. Tim had stumbled around the campus in the dark, checking parking lot after parking lot. It had been in a remote backlot, the only car left there. Tim had sprinted towards it, shining his flashlight into the windows. Jay had not been there. He felt as if he needed to go back now, though. There had to be some clue that Jay had left behind. Something.
Tim didn't expect the car to be unlocked. But after a ginger pull of the handle, the drivers side door opened expectantly. Typical Jay, thought Tim, not to lock his car. Opening the door, Tim stooped down to look inside. The car was messy, bits of trash littering the floor. It needed to be cleaned out. The backseat was empty. The car smelled familiar, showing no signs that its owner was no longer present. The car smelled like Jay. Tim lurched backwards, shutting the car door and the sealing the stale air in. Taking a deep breath, Tim decided to check the trunk. He would make himself do that, before leaving. He didn't plan on coming back to the car. The trunk was also unlocked and empty except for one thing; Jay's laptop case. Tim did not know why he hadn't thought of looking for this. Nervously looking over his shoulder, Tim brought the case closer, unzipping the top pouch the same way he had seen Jay do numerous times. There, secured snugly by its velcro strap, was Jay's laptop. It appeared untampered with. Tim looked behind himself once more before securing the laptop once more and taking the case. Slinging the strap over his shoulder, Tim held it closer than necessary as he shut the trunk and walked quickly away from Jay's car. He did not look back.
The campus library was fairly crowded, but Tim was able to blend in with the crowd and find an empty corner table. He had removed his chest-cam, opting instead to leave it in his car rather than explain to curious college students that he was making a documentary. Settling in so that he sat with his back to the wall, Tim opened the laptop. The screen was smudged with fingerprints whose origins Tim ignored as he typed in the last password he knew that the laptop had. Jay had mumbled it to him sleepily, when he was still 'out of it', and had left updating Twitter and the checking the channel to Tim. Miraculously, Jay had not changed the password. The desktop was just as Jay had left it, neat and orderly. Tim took a moment to connect to the free library wifi before he began to explore the files. Some were cryptically labeled, seemingly on purpose. Tim assumed that the organization had made sense to Jay. Folders of images, screenshots of totheark videos, and binary translated to english. Even a folder for music that Tim had never heard Jay listen to, a mix of indie and aggressive rap that nearly made Tim laugh out loud. After several more minutes of sifting through video thumbnails, Tim decided to check for the most recent videos. The most recent video caught Tim's attention. It was dated the day before he had last seen Jay. When Jay had threatened him with a knife. When he had left him tied up and screaming on his living room floor. Fishing for headphones in his pockets, Tim secured them into the laptop with shaking hands and put them in. Reluctantly, he clicked play.
The video started with a shot of Jay, sitting in his car. Tim stopped himself from pausing the video. He felt sick. Meanwhile, Jay in the video had picked the camera up, leaving his car and heading into what Tim recognized to be camera shook with movement as the tunnel came into view. "Don't." Tim whispered to the laptop screen, like it would help. Jay didn't listen to him, instead continuing to the other side of the tunnel. Tim had stopped breathing. But nothing happened. Jay continued on, pausing on the other side to look around. He continued to move through the woods, falling and dumping the camera into surrounding leaf litter. He was looking for something. Tim jerked backwards at the sudden appearance of the Operator, camera distortion lasting only moments. And then he was gone. The camera's audio picked up Jay's quick, frightened breathing. Jay's phone appeared on-screen briefly, dial tone buzzing offscreen as Jay looked around. To Tim's surprise, he heard his own voice. Jay had called him? "Tim. It's me." Jay began, and Tim nearly paused the video again. This hadn't happened. This couldn't have happened. He had never gotten that call. Jay continued to speak, and Tim could hear that he was scared. "I watched the tape I took from you….and now I'm at Rosswood trying to retrace Alex and Jessica's steps…" Tim could only shake his head. Why would he do that? What did he expect to find? Jessica's body? Alex? "I crossed through that tunnel...but now I'm at that shack that we woke up at before." The shack came into view on screen as Jay approached it. "But that layout is wrong, it's completely wrong!" Jay's voiced wavered. "We've never been to the other side of that tunnel and when we left here, I know we didn't cross back through it." Tim knew that as well. They hadn't been near the tunnel… "Rosswood has either shifted around, or I'm starting to lose it." A blip of distortion at the top of the screen set Tim on edge. He willed Jay to just get out of there. "I don't know, maybe both. Listen, just call me as soon as you get this. I'm… I'm sorry. I know why you kept that tape from me, and we're not gonna get anywhere like this, working solo. So I'm going to come over at some point tomorrow, and we'll figure out what to do next." Tim squeezed his eyes shut briefly. He couldn't breath.
Jay began to cough, choking out "I gotta get out of here. I'm starting to see things that I know aren't there, and it's starting to make me feel really sick." His speech dissolved into more coughing. "Call me back if you can." Jay ended the voicemail, sniffling and coughing. He stumbled into the shack, dropping the camera as he went. Tim couldn't look away from the screen as Jay collapsed to the shack floor on all fours, coughing and falling to his side, writhing. Seizing. Distortion crept into the audio and Tim was frozen in horror, watching as….it….appeared, watching. The video snapped briefly to a what appeared to be someone, presumably Jay, running through Rosswood, before giving way to completely corrupted footage. Tim let it play, the distortion filling the audio. "Hey." a voice said, accompanying a tap on the shoulder. Tim jumped, looking up at the blurry vision of a tall man, a college student in a maroon hoody. "Hey? You alright, man?" Tim blinked, realizing that he was openly crying. "Yeah." he said, his voiced so ragged that the word barely came out. "Yeah," he repeated, clearing his throat a little, "I just saw something I needed to see."
.