My first story! I decided to write a Marble Hornets OC story out of the few I've read. All reviews are welcome; I'm looking to improve. Thanks for reading :)

I don't really know why I got into this mess. It started out harmless enough. Things seemed so fine, but something went wrong, terribly wrong. I don't even know when it began; now we're stuck with no way out. I'm completely lost on how this will turn out, for all of us.

I guess I should explain somethings first; my name is Katie Hawkins. If you care to know what I look like I'm 5'7" with light brown hair to my shoulder blades and blue eyes. 3 years ago my cousin Alex Kralie began working on his student film called "Marble Hornets". I helped out with things here and there, nothing too big. Sometime during project he began acting...different. His attitude completely changed; he became more aggressive, short tempered, and he always had to have a camera with him. Now me and Alex are pretty close, almost like siblings, we could always go to each other if we had a problem. So I found it odd when he wouldn't talk to me about what was going on, not even to his best friends. Ever one else on the project couldn't stand his sudden change; he became almost impossible to work with. Soon after he stopped the film and switched schools; I never saw Alex again.

A couple of days ago I found a YouTube channel and a Twitter called Marble Hornets. Watching the videos; I found out that they were of Alex and the filming of Marble Hornets. Digging into it; I found out that Jay, a friend of Alex's who helped with the film, had gotten the tapes and was posting clips from them, hoping to find something about Alex. I contacted him in hopes of finding out anything. Jay was one of the few people that had worked on Marble Hornets that I kept in touch with. We got to talking and I told him that I had some tapes that Alex gave me. He asked to look at the them to see if there was anything important on them. I also had a flash drive with a video I took from Alex's camera 3 years ago. I had to stay at his house for a while and the first night there something...strange happened. I still don't know what happened and it still creeps me out. Hopefully these tapes could shed some light on what really happened to Alex.

I packed up the small box of tapes into my car; along with the flash drive with a video. I wasn't sure why I had kept it, while it creeped me out it felt wrong to delete it. There could be something on the video that I might of missed. I didn't have a chance to look at the others; partly because of time and what Jay had found on his. I was a little nervous about watching any of the tapes alone. The car ride wasn't too long; he lived no more than 10 minutes away from. As I pulled into the apartment complex parking lot; I saw Jay waiting for me. The first thing I noticed was the dark bags forming under his eyes.

"Hey Jay, how have you been?" I asked, stepping out of the car.

"Fine, I've been fine." I gave him a quick hug. He seemed slightly surprised but returned it.

"Are you o.k Jay? You seem nervous."

"No I'm fine, really." Something was bugging him, but it was clear that he wasn't going to tell me.

"Well, I brought the tapes. There's not many but you might find something."

"Great, let's get these up to my apartment." Fetching the box, he lead me up some stairs. He seemed to be in a hurry in getting back inside.

"I see you're still living on a college student budget. Ever thought of getting a nicer place?" I jokingly asked. Jay let out a little chuckle.

"Ha, I guess this place has grown on me. I never thought to leave." While he fished out his keys; I thought I saw someone hiding behind a tree, but a second glance showed no one was there. I would if I should say something to Jay, but not when he was so jumpy.

"Come on in, we can figure out what to do with those tapes." His apartment was fairly nice; not too small but large enough for one person. There was a box on his table filled with tapes.

"These were the ones that Alex gave you, right?" He nodded.

"Yeah, I've gone through almost half of them so far. Nothing important expect the ones I put on the channel." He paused, looking at the box I had brought.

"Katie, are you sure you want to help? I don't know what's going on and I don't want to pull you into something dangerous." I sighed; I had a feeling Jay was going to say something to change my mind.

"I want to find Alex too. He's like a brother to me, let me help," I grabbed his arm. "Please." He stared at me, and I held his gaze. This was something I wasn't going to miss out, not with Alex involved.

"It would be nice to have some help looking though all of the tapes." I gave a little smile. He signed and returned it.

"O.k, let's get started on your tapes. You said you had a flash drive with another video on it?"

"Yeah," I dug the drive out of my pocket. "It's a video from when I stayed at Alex's. The video itself isn't the only thing that's odd, but with what also happened that night it's something weird. Watching it might give you a better idea." While pulling up the video; I explained to Jay what I remembered about that night. How strange Alex was acting, the cameras set up in his room's and how he wanted to film some noises he heard during the night.

"That's an odd way to film some noises." He commented.

"I thought the same thing, but I didn't say anything. He was acting weird that night." I sighed, fast forwarding the video to the right time.

"I just want to know what happened to him Jay. I want to know what went wrong." He placed a hand on my shoulder.

"We'll figure this out, don't worry." I nodded, smiling. "Oh, here's when things get weird." The video still showed me sleeping when the door slowly opened. You could barely make out the shape of a person when distortion kicked in. It stayed like that for about a minute when the video came back. Ever thing was normal, expect the door was opened when I had clearly closed to a gasp. It was less than a minute when I awoke, the look on my face showed that I had a nightmare of some kind. I turned to look at the door, got up and left the room.

"So it just ends right after you leave the room?" Jay asked.

"Yeah, I heard some noises from Alex's room and went go check on him." He glanced over at the tapes.

"Maybe Alex's tape from that night is here. I hope you don't have any plans, cuz if you want to help we need to look through these tapes."

"I always wanted to spend my week looking at a bunch of tapes." I joking said. After about 2 hours of searching, we found it in the tapes I had brought. It showed Alex's room, the camera pointed at his door way. Nothing happened for a few moments till that strange man pushed open the door and entered his room. Alex, waking up, peered out the door than closed it. Nothing else happened till it changed to Alex sitting in front of the camera, blood dripping down his face.

"Oh my God. That's the thing that appeared in the other videos; do you think it did that too Alex?" Jay shrugged.

"Maybe, it's hard to say." Alex sat staring at the camera for a while till a alarm went of. Just as he turned off the camera, a knock was heard.

"That must of been when I went to check on him."

"Did anything else happen after he turned of the camera?" I shook my head.

"No, not really. The cut wasn't that bad so I cleaned it up. He seemed really out of it. It was like he didn't know what was going on." I paused, unsure if I wanted to tell him the main thing that bugged me about that night. "There was one other thing." Jay looked at me, waiting for me to continue. "After Alex went back to bed, I noticed something." He nodded.

"What was it?" He asked.

"There was a red mark around my neck; like someone was trying to choke me with a rope or something." He gave no response. Glancing, I saw that he was staring at the computer, mouth pressed in a thin line.

"Do you know what caused it?"

"Not at first, but after seeing that...thing, I have a feeling it could of been it."

"I see..." Why was Jay so worried about that? A small part of me said it was because he really cared about me, but I tried to convince myself he was just being a good friend.

"So what are we going to do now?" I asked.

"I'm thinking about uploading this as a new entry, only..." Jay paused, looking over at me.

"What is it?"

"If you really want to help; I'm gonna have to mention I got the video from you. Are you o.k with that?" Jay didn't want my name tied to the channel in anyway, but now he had no choice.

"I'm fine with that. I said I was going to help you no matter what, so you might as well let people know that I'm helping you." He gave me a relieved smile.

"Thanks Katie, it's...nice to know I won't have to do this alone." Jay began putting the entry together while I sat and watched. He explained to me what little he knew about totheark, the channel that was putting up video responses to the entries.

"So you don't have a clue as to who they are or what they want?"

"Not that I can tell, but the videos haven't been easy to understand." I nodded. The few that he showed me have been very cryptic and there seemed to be a hidden message in some of them.

"If it wasn't for the people that message me about what they found I may never know what there talking about."

"Yeah it is nice that people are helping you, even if it's something little." I looked at the clock. "Oh no, I have to be somewhere soon. Are you o.k if I leave?"

"Don't worry Katie," Jay said, standing up. "I'll be fine on my own. I'm just gonna look through a few more tapes while the new entry uploads. I'll let you know if I find anything." He walked me down to the end of his hallway.

"Bye Jay, and thanks for letting me help." He smiled.

"I'm glad to have your help. See ya." I flashed a smile and hurried back to my car, unaware of a shadowy figure watching me and Jay.