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Someone keeps leaving tapes at my door. I finally decided to watch them.
When my brother killed himself, I decided I needed to move out for college.
I'm not sure how long he struggled for. I honestly don't like to think about it.
All I know is one night he went into the bathroom and never came out. By the time our dad bashed down the door, it was too late.
My parents sheltered me from the aftermath. But their screams painted a vivid picture.
Sometimes I wish I saw his body. Maybe it would've made it easier to accept he was gone.
The brother who let me sit on his shoulders to watch fireworks, the brother who would fight with me to sit shotgun, the brother who made me the man I am, left me. He left with only a letter to explain himself.
His apologies were hollow.
Come on Nick, you expect me to believe you're sorry when you left? I needed you. We all did.
Was I not good enough to reach out to?
Whatever went through his mind, I was done with torturing myself over it. That horrific night was two years ago now. It was time to move on. Or to try to at least.
So, I made sure to get a dorm for college.
Well, I tried to. I applied too late.
What I got instead was a crappy apartment outside the city. Campus was a bus ride away, but a long one. I would've been more efficient staying home but I didn't care.
I guess this way I had no roommates. That's a positive.
It was time to try and have some fun.
I was always good at socialising so I made friends fast. I definitely attended more parties than lectures, but I was keeping up. It sucked ass that I couldn't stay out late without risking missing the last bus though.
But other than that, life was good. Really good.
It had been a while since I could find myself smiling without it feeling forced. I was also having some luck with the ladies as well.
By that I mean I got one girl's number and that was because we had a group project together. But if that's not great luck, I don't know what is! Didn't need to put any effort in.
I just had to make sure she didn't have a boyfriend, I had been down that road before… don't recommend it.
After a long day of lecturers, I was ready to throw myself on the couch and pass out. Afterall, the couch would be much closer to the door than the bed.
I am a man of efficiency and leisure.
That's when I saw it.
I honestly might have done a few rounds at the student union bar before I left (don't judge my day drinking), so I nearly crushed it underfoot. Fortunately for me, I tripped on it instead and face planted into the door.
When I tried to find the source of my misfortune, I found a small VHS tape at my foot.
I inspected it.
No notes, no explanations, not even a title of what was on the tape.
The only thing written on it was a name.
‘Tyler.’
Well, that's not me.
My first thought was, who has VHS players these days, what dumbass left this? It was then followed by, wait… what dumbass left this?
I scanned the hallway.
No one in sight.
Maybe one of my friends left it for some weird joke? Not sure how that was going to work if I had no way of playing it.
Maybe one of the neighbours left it? Maybe it had some passive aggressive message on it about how loud I was when coming home late. But why would they leave a tape instead of just talking to me about it?
I realised my ideas were stupid and the alcohol wasn't helping.
I had a test I needed to procrastinate prepping for. I didn't have the will to think about it.
So, I took it and went back to my plans for a lazy evening on the couch.
I'll just ask around if anyone has a VHS player. I'm sure it's something one of the film geeks would have.
I completely forgot about the tape.
I'd say it was because I was focused on my studies, but I won't bother lying to you.
The only reason I remembered was because another appeared a week later.
Again, nearly crushed it. Whoever was leaving these needed to understand how drunk blind I am. They need some big arrow pointing at it or something, otherwise one of these is going to end up in pieces.
Again it just had a name. This time ‘Susie’
I put it with the other. Then I forgot about it again.
From there, each day a new one would appear.
They were all the same. Just standard grey boxes. Nothing special. No explanation attached.
The names had me a little curious, I searched for movies and characters online but I couldn't find any connection. There was no pattern with them either.
Amy, Louis, Pedro, Andy, Alexa, Samantha and so on and so on.
The bigger the pile grew, the more irritated I became. I asked around if anyone was playing some practical joke on me, but everyone just seemed confused.
To be fair my apartment was very out of the way to be trying something like this. A bit too ambitious for what amounts to a mild annoyance.
If it wasn't them, that left my neighbours.
When I asked, they also didn't seem to know what I was on about. I wasn't sure if I trusted them.
Especially Mrs Glen upstairs.
Not because of her seemingly particular malicious or anything. I am just 90% sure she was hitting on me when I was moving in. She kept insisting she'd help me with my boxes just to grab onto my arms instead. She also kept insisting I should join her for dinner.
Alone.
An old woman making moves on a freshly legal teen seemed like a bit of a red flag.
Please, oh please, don't let these be her weird sex tapes or something.
I tried my best to get a hold of a VHS player or find someone who had one. I was having little to no luck. Anytime someone thought they knew someone else who might potentially know of a guy who remembers having a VHS at one point, it would be a dead end.
At this rate, I'd just have to buy one.
I was trying to avoid that outcome since my finances weren't looking pretty.
I would've put it off forever if the mystery person didn't start to double down.
In protest, they began leaving more and more tapes each time. It began as pairs of two, then three, then a month later it was a whole pile of them.
Ok, ok, I get it. You want me to watch the tapes, if you want me watch them so bad then give me something to work with. What, you have all these tapes and nothing to watch them on?
I would've been more concerned if they were leaving something ominous or there was another cause for alarm. But so far, all I knew was someone who had a lot of tapes was leaving them with me.
Each made me nervous about what could be on them, but for all I knew they were blank.
Honestly, I was becoming suspicious of a couple of my friends. They kept giggling when I wasn't around and tended to ask about the tapes a lot.
Maybe that was them fishing for a better reaction.
Until I watched whatever the contents were, I didn't have any reason to panic. Other than the pile in my living room was starting to become a ridiculous sight. It was going to be higher than the couch at this rate.
I'm going to be so pissed if I find out this is just some neighbour dumping trash on me.
I asked some film students if they had a VHS player.
I should've asked them from the beginning, because of course they did. See kids, this is why stereotypes are a good thing. Never ignore your biases.
If I had known anyone from the course I would've asked sooner. The only reason I found someone was because it turns out the girl from that project did in fact have a boyfriend. So, yeah that plan went nowhere. But at least he was doing film studies.
Don't worry, another group project put a couple girls on my radar this time. I have plans to fumble that shortly.
Fortunately, the film kids seemed amused by my plight. They couldn't let me take the player home since it was technically the university's property, so I had to bring the tapes there.
Seemed fair enough.
The next day, I grabbed a random dozen tapes from my pile and stuffed them in my bag. I stopped paying attention to their names ages ago, so I just picked at random.
I was to be left alone with the miracle machine for a bit. At the time I was coming around the students all had lectures, but they planned to join me once they were finished.
The room was dark and old. It was tucked into the back of the building across from the photography room. It smelt like piss and cigarettes. It was right next to the exit that led to a dodgy alleyway outside so I wasn't surprised.
I grabbed an old wooden chair and set my bag down. I reached for the first tape titled ‘Adam’ and made my way to the player.
It took me embarrassingly long to figure it out. I know, I know, you just put the thing in the thing but I kept overthinking which way round it should go and kept hitting the wrong buttons. Then I realised I forgot to turn the damn thing on at the switch and look, I've never claimed to be the brightest.
Now with it safely inside the machine and ready to go, I grabbed the remote.
Part of me didn't want to hit play. I don't know if it was because I was worried about the contents, or if I had unknowingly been enjoying the mystery up to this point.
Either way, I felt compelled to push forward.
Let's see what they were so keen about showing me.
It began to play.
The footage was rough and static-y, I couldn't tell if that was due to the tape or the TV. To be fair, I had been tossing the tapes about the place, I might have damaged them a little.
Despite the grainy texture, the image was clear.
There was a cliff. Just to the side of it was a road with a barrier, sectioning it off. The sky was a pale blue and the clouds were dotted across it.
Surrounding the cliff were trees and various vegetation. In the distance, another cliff was visible like the camera was pointing at a crater.
I wish they had better speakers. Apparently, they broke a few weeks prior. I guess I could always return when they were fixed though.
All I could hear was a quiet sound of the wind blowing through.
I waited for something to happen but other than the branches moving in the breeze, everything was still.
That was until a blue Ford came racing down the road and went hurtling through the barrier and off the cliff.
If I am being transparent, I laughed.
It was timed like a comedic beat. It came in at the perfect moment and then disappeared before I could really process what I just saw. Sound cut out as it disappeared too.
You ever see perfectly cut videos on Instagram and stuff? It was like that.
What, were these some kind of skit videos or something? Maybe cut scenes from a movie?
The tape just continued on as it started after that.
So, I went to the next tape.
‘Angela’.
Similar to the first, the shot lingered on a drawn out scene.
It showed a pool beside a hotel. The water glistened under the moonlight as all the lights were off. It made it a bit hard to see, really the only thing visible was the pool itself.
That was until a light appeared from above.
My best guess was it was a resident. The camera view was from the ground tucked in the corner at a distance, so it was hard to see any of the rooms. But the bright almost orange-yellow glow was just like one you would find in a room.
It was high up though, so it didn't illuminate anything. It was mainly just a new colour on the screen.
Then something hit the ground with a;
THWACK.
I had to reverse the tape to see what I missed.
I thought it was some kind of human sized rag doll, like what you would use in stunts in movies. It hurtled to the ground in the blink of an eye and landed in an unnatural pose.
It was the pose that made me think it was a doll. I don't think people can bend like that.
Then again I have never seen someone fall from multiple stories up onto hard concrete before.
I was confused.
I was starting to suspect this was scrapped footage. I think the the joke was maybe meant to be that they completely missed the pool.
If it was more on beat like the other one, maybe it would've got a chuckle out of me. Yet now, I had this silent fear building in the back of my mind that something was off.
‘Pascal.’
This video was nearly impossible to make out.
It was in someone's study. It was near pitch black with only a lamp illuminating the room.
Silhouetted on the wall was the shadow of a man on a chair, holding something between his legs. It was long and extended to his mouth.
It was the sudden BANG that made me piece together what it was.
I turned off the tape immediately. I wanted to appreciate the cinematography, but my stomach was becoming upset. I could see the man's head change shapes when he blasted a part of it off.
It was an impressive effect, but it was so visceral I couldn't stomach it.
A deadly pattern was emerging. I thought maybe these were scenes from a movie, but they were all so different that they had to be from different ones. I'm not sure of any movies that would need so many senseless deaths.
The motives of my mystery gifter made me sweat more than the videos themselves.
Why would they want to show me these? Was I being threatened?
I tried to tell myself I was jumping to conclusions. It was probably still a practical joke, the prankster just had a rotten sense of humour.
I groaned at the idea of reporting it. That was going to be a lot of effort for what would likely amount to nothing. I'm not sure the university would even care since it happened off campus and it wasn't serious enough for the police.
Hell I wasn't even sure if it was serious enough for me to be concerned yet. These were three videos of dozens, maybe the others…
For some stupid reason that escapes me, I picked up another tape.
‘Alvin.’
It was the clearest video yet.
An older gentleman, probably in his fifties or sixties, set up a stool in the middle of the room.
The angle was still awkward. I couldn't make out any details other than him and the wooden floor.
His wrinkly face was visible.
He seemed tired, despondent. For a moment, he just sat on the stool and read a piece of paper in his hand. His eyes scrolled through it a number of times as he fidgeted with his fingers.
After a few minutes of that, he arose from the chair, letting the paper fall to the floor.
Once it landed, he began to climb onto the stool.
I braced myself, anticipating what would come next. I didn't appreciate how intimate the scene was. It hit too close to home, but for some reason I wanted to keep watching.
It was more of a need than a want. I just wanted to be proven wrong. He'd change his mind, he wouldn't follow through. Someone would walk through the door and stop him. He'd remember he had people to look after or something, right?
When done placing his chin over something off screen, the man stepped off the stool.
I watched his legs kick about, desperate to cling onto life like a dying fish stuck on shore. I could hear his desperate breaths, trying to intake whatever little air he could.
The more he struggled, the more his eyes bulged out and his face went red. Tears formed as he spat and croaked.
I could see the regret in his eyes. The way his fingers gripped around the rope that was taking him from this world, his survival instincts doing whatever they could to undo his mistake.
But it was too late.
My finger hovered over the off button, but I couldn't bring myself to hit it as I noticed something.
The more his hands turned purple, and the more his eyes pleaded in desperation, the more convincing the performance was. So convincing… that no one is helping.
Reality struck me when the man went limp.
I turned it off and chucked the remote at the screen.
“What the fuck?! What the fuck?!”
I was in hysterics when the film kids arrived.
“What is wrong man?”
“Call the police! Call the police right fucking now!”
I could tell they were scared of me more than they were concerned. They asked what I saw but I couldn't bring myself to do anything but scream.
All I could see was Nick's face in the place of that man.
I saw one student reach for the remote and I slapped it out of her hand.
“Don't!”
“Jeez, man, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Police! Now!”
Every single tape was the same.
The cops told me I was fortunate I managed to pick the less graphic ones. I didn't feel fortunate.
They confirmed my fear. After careful investigation, every one was a real death. They even managed to link a large majority of them to old suicide cases.
The few they couldn't identify seemed to be people from another country.
I refused to go home. It was better I return to be with my parents. Even after all the tapes were removed and the police assured me they'd patrol the area for me during the day, I just couldn't go back to that apartment.
They were under the impression this was some kind of threat. Honestly, I think they were preoccupied trying to find out how the videos could've even been filmed in the first place.
I knew why they had been left at my door. Whoever left them, wanted me to watch. To see what I had been protected from all those years ago.
I knew this the moment I saw one tape be sealed away. On the tape was a single word.
‘Nick.’
#entertainment
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When my brother killed himself, I decided I needed to move out for college.
I'm not sure how long he struggled for. I honestly don't like to think about it.
All I know is one night he went into the bathroom and never came out. By the time our dad bashed down the door, it was too late.
My parents sheltered me from the aftermath. But their screams painted a vivid picture.
Sometimes I wish I saw his body. Maybe it would've made it easier to accept he was gone.
The brother who let me sit on his shoulders to watch fireworks, the brother who would fight with me to sit shotgun, the brother who made me the man I am, left me. He left with only a letter to explain himself.
His apologies were hollow.
Come on Nick, you expect me to believe you're sorry when you left? I needed you. We all did.
Was I not good enough to reach out to?
Whatever went through his mind, I was done with torturing myself over it. That horrific night was two years ago now. It was time to move on. Or to try to at least.
So, I made sure to get a dorm for college.
Well, I tried to. I applied too late.
What I got instead was a crappy apartment outside the city. Campus was a bus ride away, but a long one. I would've been more efficient staying home but I didn't care.
I guess this way I had no roommates. That's a positive.
It was time to try and have some fun.
I was always good at socialising so I made friends fast. I definitely attended more parties than lectures, but I was keeping up. It sucked ass that I couldn't stay out late without risking missing the last bus though.
But other than that, life was good. Really good.
It had been a while since I could find myself smiling without it feeling forced. I was also having some luck with the ladies as well.
By that I mean I got one girl's number and that was because we had a group project together. But if that's not great luck, I don't know what is! Didn't need to put any effort in.
I just had to make sure she didn't have a boyfriend, I had been down that road before… don't recommend it.
After a long day of lecturers, I was ready to throw myself on the couch and pass out. Afterall, the couch would be much closer to the door than the bed.
I am a man of efficiency and leisure.
That's when I saw it.
I honestly might have done a few rounds at the student union bar before I left (don't judge my day drinking), so I nearly crushed it underfoot. Fortunately for me, I tripped on it instead and face planted into the door.
When I tried to find the source of my misfortune, I found a small VHS tape at my foot.
I inspected it.
No notes, no explanations, not even a title of what was on the tape.
The only thing written on it was a name.
‘Tyler.’
Well, that's not me.
My first thought was, who has VHS players these days, what dumbass left this? It was then followed by, wait… what dumbass left this?
I scanned the hallway.
No one in sight.
Maybe one of my friends left it for some weird joke? Not sure how that was going to work if I had no way of playing it.
Maybe one of the neighbours left it? Maybe it had some passive aggressive message on it about how loud I was when coming home late. But why would they leave a tape instead of just talking to me about it?
I realised my ideas were stupid and the alcohol wasn't helping.
I had a test I needed to procrastinate prepping for. I didn't have the will to think about it.
So, I took it and went back to my plans for a lazy evening on the couch.
I'll just ask around if anyone has a VHS player. I'm sure it's something one of the film geeks would have.
I completely forgot about the tape.
I'd say it was because I was focused on my studies, but I won't bother lying to you.
The only reason I remembered was because another appeared a week later.
Again, nearly crushed it. Whoever was leaving these needed to understand how drunk blind I am. They need some big arrow pointing at it or something, otherwise one of these is going to end up in pieces.
Again it just had a name. This time ‘Susie’
I put it with the other. Then I forgot about it again.
From there, each day a new one would appear.
They were all the same. Just standard grey boxes. Nothing special. No explanation attached.
The names had me a little curious, I searched for movies and characters online but I couldn't find any connection. There was no pattern with them either.
Amy, Louis, Pedro, Andy, Alexa, Samantha and so on and so on.
The bigger the pile grew, the more irritated I became. I asked around if anyone was playing some practical joke on me, but everyone just seemed confused.
To be fair my apartment was very out of the way to be trying something like this. A bit too ambitious for what amounts to a mild annoyance.
If it wasn't them, that left my neighbours.
When I asked, they also didn't seem to know what I was on about. I wasn't sure if I trusted them.
Especially Mrs Glen upstairs.
Not because of her seemingly particular malicious or anything. I am just 90% sure she was hitting on me when I was moving in. She kept insisting she'd help me with my boxes just to grab onto my arms instead. She also kept insisting I should join her for dinner.
Alone.
An old woman making moves on a freshly legal teen seemed like a bit of a red flag.
Please, oh please, don't let these be her weird sex tapes or something.
I tried my best to get a hold of a VHS player or find someone who had one. I was having little to no luck. Anytime someone thought they knew someone else who might potentially know of a guy who remembers having a VHS at one point, it would be a dead end.
At this rate, I'd just have to buy one.
I was trying to avoid that outcome since my finances weren't looking pretty.
I would've put it off forever if the mystery person didn't start to double down.
In protest, they began leaving more and more tapes each time. It began as pairs of two, then three, then a month later it was a whole pile of them.
Ok, ok, I get it. You want me to watch the tapes, if you want me watch them so bad then give me something to work with. What, you have all these tapes and nothing to watch them on?
I would've been more concerned if they were leaving something ominous or there was another cause for alarm. But so far, all I knew was someone who had a lot of tapes was leaving them with me.
Each made me nervous about what could be on them, but for all I knew they were blank.
Honestly, I was becoming suspicious of a couple of my friends. They kept giggling when I wasn't around and tended to ask about the tapes a lot.
Maybe that was them fishing for a better reaction.
Until I watched whatever the contents were, I didn't have any reason to panic. Other than the pile in my living room was starting to become a ridiculous sight. It was going to be higher than the couch at this rate.
I'm going to be so pissed if I find out this is just some neighbour dumping trash on me.
I asked some film students if they had a VHS player.
I should've asked them from the beginning, because of course they did. See kids, this is why stereotypes are a good thing. Never ignore your biases.
If I had known anyone from the course I would've asked sooner. The only reason I found someone was because it turns out the girl from that project did in fact have a boyfriend. So, yeah that plan went nowhere. But at least he was doing film studies.
Don't worry, another group project put a couple girls on my radar this time. I have plans to fumble that shortly.
Fortunately, the film kids seemed amused by my plight. They couldn't let me take the player home since it was technically the university's property, so I had to bring the tapes there.
Seemed fair enough.
The next day, I grabbed a random dozen tapes from my pile and stuffed them in my bag. I stopped paying attention to their names ages ago, so I just picked at random.
I was to be left alone with the miracle machine for a bit. At the time I was coming around the students all had lectures, but they planned to join me once they were finished.
The room was dark and old. It was tucked into the back of the building across from the photography room. It smelt like piss and cigarettes. It was right next to the exit that led to a dodgy alleyway outside so I wasn't surprised.
I grabbed an old wooden chair and set my bag down. I reached for the first tape titled ‘Adam’ and made my way to the player.
It took me embarrassingly long to figure it out. I know, I know, you just put the thing in the thing but I kept overthinking which way round it should go and kept hitting the wrong buttons. Then I realised I forgot to turn the damn thing on at the switch and look, I've never claimed to be the brightest.
Now with it safely inside the machine and ready to go, I grabbed the remote.
Part of me didn't want to hit play. I don't know if it was because I was worried about the contents, or if I had unknowingly been enjoying the mystery up to this point.
Either way, I felt compelled to push forward.
Let's see what they were so keen about showing me.
It began to play.
The footage was rough and static-y, I couldn't tell if that was due to the tape or the TV. To be fair, I had been tossing the tapes about the place, I might have damaged them a little.
Despite the grainy texture, the image was clear.
There was a cliff. Just to the side of it was a road with a barrier, sectioning it off. The sky was a pale blue and the clouds were dotted across it.
Surrounding the cliff were trees and various vegetation. In the distance, another cliff was visible like the camera was pointing at a crater.
I wish they had better speakers. Apparently, they broke a few weeks prior. I guess I could always return when they were fixed though.
All I could hear was a quiet sound of the wind blowing through.
I waited for something to happen but other than the branches moving in the breeze, everything was still.
That was until a blue Ford came racing down the road and went hurtling through the barrier and off the cliff.
If I am being transparent, I laughed.
It was timed like a comedic beat. It came in at the perfect moment and then disappeared before I could really process what I just saw. Sound cut out as it disappeared too.
You ever see perfectly cut videos on Instagram and stuff? It was like that.
What, were these some kind of skit videos or something? Maybe cut scenes from a movie?
The tape just continued on as it started after that.
So, I went to the next tape.
‘Angela’.
Similar to the first, the shot lingered on a drawn out scene.
It showed a pool beside a hotel. The water glistened under the moonlight as all the lights were off. It made it a bit hard to see, really the only thing visible was the pool itself.
That was until a light appeared from above.
My best guess was it was a resident. The camera view was from the ground tucked in the corner at a distance, so it was hard to see any of the rooms. But the bright almost orange-yellow glow was just like one you would find in a room.
It was high up though, so it didn't illuminate anything. It was mainly just a new colour on the screen.
Then something hit the ground with a;
THWACK.
I had to reverse the tape to see what I missed.
I thought it was some kind of human sized rag doll, like what you would use in stunts in movies. It hurtled to the ground in the blink of an eye and landed in an unnatural pose.
It was the pose that made me think it was a doll. I don't think people can bend like that.
Then again I have never seen someone fall from multiple stories up onto hard concrete before.
I was confused.
I was starting to suspect this was scrapped footage. I think the the joke was maybe meant to be that they completely missed the pool.
If it was more on beat like the other one, maybe it would've got a chuckle out of me. Yet now, I had this silent fear building in the back of my mind that something was off.
‘Pascal.’
This video was nearly impossible to make out.
It was in someone's study. It was near pitch black with only a lamp illuminating the room.
Silhouetted on the wall was the shadow of a man on a chair, holding something between his legs. It was long and extended to his mouth.
It was the sudden BANG that made me piece together what it was.
I turned off the tape immediately. I wanted to appreciate the cinematography, but my stomach was becoming upset. I could see the man's head change shapes when he blasted a part of it off.
It was an impressive effect, but it was so visceral I couldn't stomach it.
A deadly pattern was emerging. I thought maybe these were scenes from a movie, but they were all so different that they had to be from different ones. I'm not sure of any movies that would need so many senseless deaths.
The motives of my mystery gifter made me sweat more than the videos themselves.
Why would they want to show me these? Was I being threatened?
I tried to tell myself I was jumping to conclusions. It was probably still a practical joke, the prankster just had a rotten sense of humour.
I groaned at the idea of reporting it. That was going to be a lot of effort for what would likely amount to nothing. I'm not sure the university would even care since it happened off campus and it wasn't serious enough for the police.
Hell I wasn't even sure if it was serious enough for me to be concerned yet. These were three videos of dozens, maybe the others…
For some stupid reason that escapes me, I picked up another tape.
‘Alvin.’
It was the clearest video yet.
An older gentleman, probably in his fifties or sixties, set up a stool in the middle of the room.
The angle was still awkward. I couldn't make out any details other than him and the wooden floor.
His wrinkly face was visible.
He seemed tired, despondent. For a moment, he just sat on the stool and read a piece of paper in his hand. His eyes scrolled through it a number of times as he fidgeted with his fingers.
After a few minutes of that, he arose from the chair, letting the paper fall to the floor.
Once it landed, he began to climb onto the stool.
I braced myself, anticipating what would come next. I didn't appreciate how intimate the scene was. It hit too close to home, but for some reason I wanted to keep watching.
It was more of a need than a want. I just wanted to be proven wrong. He'd change his mind, he wouldn't follow through. Someone would walk through the door and stop him. He'd remember he had people to look after or something, right?
When done placing his chin over something off screen, the man stepped off the stool.
I watched his legs kick about, desperate to cling onto life like a dying fish stuck on shore. I could hear his desperate breaths, trying to intake whatever little air he could.
The more he struggled, the more his eyes bulged out and his face went red. Tears formed as he spat and croaked.
I could see the regret in his eyes. The way his fingers gripped around the rope that was taking him from this world, his survival instincts doing whatever they could to undo his mistake.
But it was too late.
My finger hovered over the off button, but I couldn't bring myself to hit it as I noticed something.
The more his hands turned purple, and the more his eyes pleaded in desperation, the more convincing the performance was. So convincing… that no one is helping.
Reality struck me when the man went limp.
I turned it off and chucked the remote at the screen.
“What the fuck?! What the fuck?!”
I was in hysterics when the film kids arrived.
“What is wrong man?”
“Call the police! Call the police right fucking now!”
I could tell they were scared of me more than they were concerned. They asked what I saw but I couldn't bring myself to do anything but scream.
All I could see was Nick's face in the place of that man.
I saw one student reach for the remote and I slapped it out of her hand.
“Don't!”
“Jeez, man, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Police! Now!”
Every single tape was the same.
The cops told me I was fortunate I managed to pick the less graphic ones. I didn't feel fortunate.
They confirmed my fear. After careful investigation, every one was a real death. They even managed to link a large majority of them to old suicide cases.
The few they couldn't identify seemed to be people from another country.
I refused to go home. It was better I return to be with my parents. Even after all the tapes were removed and the police assured me they'd patrol the area for me during the day, I just couldn't go back to that apartment.
They were under the impression this was some kind of threat. Honestly, I think they were preoccupied trying to find out how the videos could've even been filmed in the first place.
I knew why they had been left at my door. Whoever left them, wanted me to watch. To see what I had been protected from all those years ago.
I knew this the moment I saw one tape be sealed away. On the tape was a single word.
‘Nick.’
#entertainment
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