Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alex stared out of the window slightly, and tried to think back to the last time Merrick and himself had talked as he stared at the tapes labeled Marble Hornets. They had suddenly disappeared during the middle of filming one day, claiming to be checking something out and had never come back. Tim and Brian had gone off to look for them when they hadn’t come back in a few days, but those two hadn’t returned that night. Alex remembers Amy telling him it was just an elaborate prank the three were pulling, but when Amy had gone missing as well, he began having his doubts that it was a prank. 

And so there he sat, in front of the old tapes from Marble Hornets that he had managed to get out of Jay’s old room before the apartment manager threw them away. All of them were labeled in sharpie, and some of them seemed to be scribbled over, or had ominous names. Sighing softly, he pulled up youtube and labeled the channel he would upload to “Marble Hornets”. He wanted to document his search for his old best friend. He didn’t want his search to be in vain, or for his disappearance to go unnoticed as well. If he posted about the process, maybe he wouldn’t go missing.. 

Looking through the tapes, he found that almost all of them were numbered, though, none of the numbers in the box matched up, or seemed anything close to each other. Sighing frustratedly, he picked the lowest number he could find, and stacked them in the box putting the highest numbers in the bottom, and the lower ones at the top. The process was incredibly time consuming but the second he was done, he felt as if he achieved something bigger than just sorting tapes. Frowning slightly, he grabbed the lowest number, and stuck it in his camera, and transferred it over to his computer, waiting for it to download so he could finally start his investigation. 

And so the first upload of Marble Hornets was made. 

Entry #0

Prologue: 

This is a channel made to investigate the disappearance of one Jay Merrick. He went missing during the filming of my student film Marble Hornets, and hasn’t been seen since. Others have gone missing looking for him, and even ones who didn’t even know him well have gone missing as well. 

A week ago I found tapes that he had left behind in his apartment when he went missing. They are marked, but many of the titles are scribbled out, and the ones that are not have numbers that are not close enough together for a set timeline of events. 

I am hoping if I upload my investigation onto here, I will be safe from whatever is causing the people I once knew to go missing. 

I will find you all. I promise.

Chapter Text

The next few days after Alex uploaded the entries were relatively calm. He loaded the tapes onto his laptop, and labeled them appropriately, before moving onto the next ones, refusing to go through them all before he had them all downloaded. He still had a job and classes of course, so his search was slowed a bit. His student film professor excluded him from his film project, as most of his friends had gone missing during the filming process. He just told him to turn in the script and focus on his work in other classes. 

One day however, he comes across a video response to one of his videos. It was a response to Entry #4, which was interesting. He didn’t think anything of use was in that entry aside from paranoid filming. However, he clicked on the response and prayed to dear life that he wasn’t being pranked. He despised the people who thought his search was a joke. However, when he clicked on the video, he was met with the missing audio of that entry. “Jay, what are you zooming in on? You’ve been awfully intent on looking through the camera for a while now.” Tim’s soft voice could be heard through the speakers, and Alex panicked before pausing it. This seemed like a private conversation he shouldn’t hear… But why else would the audio be taken out unless something important happened…? 

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m just.. I keep seeing things and if I record it I'll know if it’s real or not..” Jay starts before stopping themself slowly. Tim soft sigh could be heard loudly. “I understand that, just try your best ok? Maybe try and focus on other things. Like how you have that essay due tonight that you’ve been needing to work on all week?” Tim’s voice turns into a teasing light one, the concern mostly gone. “Oh shit.” Jay starts before dropping the camera to open his laptop. “Jay- I- we aren’t anywhere with Wifi-” “Drive to a McDonalds we need food anyways-” “JAY-” The last playful yell of Jay’s name distorted loudly in Alex’s ears, and he fell backwards covering his ears. Alex quickly got up and paused the video, before seeing the tall faceless one behind Tim and Jay, staring into the camera as if it had the eyes to do so. 

Alex stared back, feeling nervous to glance behind him in case something was behind him. However, he couldn’t hear anything. No static, no breath other than his own. His heart refused to calm however, and he grew shaky from the adrenaline his heart was pumping alongside his blood. The tape revealed something he had been trying to catch on camera himself. Alex sighed before leaning back in his chair. That was not an incredibly private conversation, but now Alex knew that Tim hallucinated, or at least had something akin to it. And that made Alex worried. 

With thoughts that struggled to stay organized, he did his best to respond to the entry with something coherent.

The missing audio from Entry #4 has been found, due to someone from the name of ToTheArk online. The audio details nothing of importance, but it shows that Jay and Tim both had a history of hallucinations. The distortion at the end of the entry is most probably due to the faceless one found in the background of the recording. 

Perhaps he had the right idea to record everything…

Alex paused, wondering if he should add the last bit of text. Sighing for a moment and shaking his head, he deletes the text and replaces it. 

I wonder what the other tapes hold…

Alex sighs before posting the upload button, praying the video would save correctly onto his computer before he uploaded it to youtube. It would take multiple more minutes to fix if it uploaded wrong, and Alex really did not wish to deal with that. 

Alex thought back to all the times he complained to Jay about the uploading process, and about how hard it was to edit and compile the clips together. Jay would just sigh and offer to teach him, which they would for a few minutes until Alex’s attention demanded something else. Alex shook his head as he stared at the laptop. The fond memories of the missing would do nothing but make him reminisce and get him upset. 

Shaking his head once more, he looked over the video a final time, and figured it was all good enough to be presentable, and pressed the upload button on YouTube.

If there was a problem with the video, that was tomorrow Alex’s problem. 

Walking over to his bed, he shook his head once more and laid down, just hoping that tomorrow gave him more clues than today did.