Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Entry one, take one. hello!" A whispered gently from the camcorder. The shakily filmed footage showed nothing else than someone's shoes, walking on a gravel road with a flashlight. "I-... I'm not sure why I'm doing this-"

"Entry one, take two! Hello! My name is Jackson Coronado!" The footage was now focused on a person's face, the frame shaking as they walked. The sky was red behind them.

Logan paused the video before it could persist much longer. What in the world? What was he supposed to make of this? Not even a full hour of having to deal with seeing one of his friends impaled on a tree like a god damn piece of meat, and now he has to deal with the fact that there was someone undoubtedly in the nightmare with them?

He had found an object fairly close to the tree the group had found Tyler impaled on. He assumed it would come in handy, he would find some way to use it. But now he had a mystery on his hands. Who on earth did this belong to? Where did they go? What have they seen? Jackson did look a tad bit familiar...

It probably wasn't the best idea to bring it up now. Not when Tyler was in the position he was. He was the focus now, getting him to the school and getting his stomach taken care of.

After getting to the school, and after the run-in with the massive centipede... thing.... they looked for the keys they needed to power the lights to the field.

Nothing. Absolutely fuck all. While everyone was to preoccupied with searching for said keys, Logan busied himself with the camcorder. Who knows, maybe there could be something useful saved on there, something that could help them defeat the centipede.

"...and as you can see here," the voice continued, on the low volume logan had set the device to. While, yes, the rest of the group had to eventually see this, Logan didn't want to risk the others breaking the camera and destroying the potentially very useful information stored on it. No offense, but they weren't the most careful with their posessions. "I am not in a... normal place. The sky is red. And there are these... things—ah! Theres one right there!"

The perspective swiveled to the sight of a distant phantom, and as the camera shook as the boy recording hid behind a nearby trashcan and zoomed in, the phantom came into focus. "I don't know what they are. Maybe some sort of ghost? Evil spirit? Demon, maybe? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure where I am. I'm just.."

"I guess I'll just record the stuff I find for later, like a little journal?"

The recording ended there. Thank goodness, because there wasn't much time left in the night.

By the time they were in the phantom realm again, Aiden had been crushed by a ceiling tile and they had been kidnapped. Everything was peachy keen on Logan's end! Being trapped in a room, away from everyone else... nothing to do...

At least he could look at the recordings? He, luckily, brought the camcorder with him.

"Hello, this is Jackson with entry number two! Im going to go over how to patch up smaller wounds, in case I need it later."

"Hello, Jackson here! Entry number five, interesting discovery, these... monsters... they don't like the light."

"Entry seventeen? Take three. How to start up a motorcycle."

"Entry twenty one, horrible news, the bike is busted completely. I crashed it trying to get away from one of those things.. but I'm okay, at least. Just hurt my leg a little bit. I think I'll need to go back to hiding and running place to place again until I find somewhere safe enough to... just be I guess."

It was honestly really interesting. Logan had spent a few hours in the phantom realm just looking to see what the phantom realm was like from another person's perspective. To see someone learn and experience it completely differently and process in their own way. It was truely something remarkable they made it that far all alone.

And while seeing them get through it was one thing, seeing them break was another.

Each and every entry they seemed to get more and more exhausted, more fearful, and more burnt out. They looked like they were either on the verge of tears or passing out, sometimes both. The entries also got longer, with ramblings about theories that were extremely farfetched and confusing. Jackson talked about anything and everything. Their life, their friends, the shows they watched, the things they did... like the camera was some sort of friend. They must have been lonely, lugging all this way, all this time. Nobody to talk to. Nobody to listen to.

Logan had finally reached the last few entries, deciding to finish the last of them right before leaving his room with the keycard he had gotten from the nurse. It started just like most entries, with Jackson greeting the camera and telling the entry number.

"Hello. Jackson Coronado, entry thirty six, I-" but before he could continue, there was a familiar scream, and then a distant cracking sound. A scream Logan knew all too well. Tyler's scream. The entry cut off there.

"Jackson Coronado, entry thirty six take two- I heard a loud noise over this way- it sounded like screaming but... It's probably jusy my head, right?" Jackson was sprinting through the woods in this entry, trying to find the source of the noise. Logan already knew what it was. Who it was. What had happened.

It was a story he knew the ending to.

Eventually, Jackson's sprinting slowed to a stop. "Oh. Oh my god.." his voice was breathless and horrified. Slowly, the scene of Tyler's body was brought into frame. Lifeless and unmoving. "That's a corpse. An actual corpse. Holy-"

Jackson was cut off by Tyler's sudden gasp for air, the life suddenly washing back over him like a tsunami. The sound of him gurgling and choking on his own blood was repulsive, and it was all caught on camera.

Then the recording stopped.

Chapter Text

Resilience happened to be Jackson's middle name. Injury after injury, he pushed on. He lived through so much, bruises so black they faded through full spectrums of colors, gashes so deep they rivaled the depths of the darkest of oceans. He witnessed it, healed it, and moved on like it was nothing. Sometimes, he even made entries of how they happened and how to fix them.

Persistence was another talent of his. If he made a comment about wanting to do something, by the next entry it was said and done. He learned to drive by himself, learned to patch himself up and learned to hide.

Survival. The most important. Logan had no idea how he did it, how Jackson had made it this far, but somehow he did. Whether it be divine intervention or mary sue oc plot armor or even just plain luck, Jackson was always able to make another entry after the last. Up until he saw Tyler.

If only Jackson had stayed at the tree a little longer. Maybe then would Logan have the comfort of knowing what happened to that mysterious boy. Maybe they would have just a little more leverage at being able to get out of this facilty.

Get out of this hell.

They hadn't been able to find much, to scrape together any information at all that might get them out. All they found was how to dig themselves a deeper hole that just got harder and harder to climb out of. Jackson, according to the entries on the camcorder, had been coming up just as empty, if not, with less discoveries than the group... but who knows what Jackson could have possibly found after he dropped his camera.

Logan, using the keycard, was able to release everyone else in the facility from their rooms. Everyone together again, everyone safe. There were a few more rooms very similar to their own, but they were devoid of any life aside from the occasional phantom. Likely just extra rooms just in case.

They locked those with phantoms behind the doors.

Having his friends back was amazing. He finally felt safe, even when he was the furthest thing from it. They were still stuck in a facility where they could be tested on and get hurt. Where they couldn't trust anyone. But he still felt safe, because he had his closest friends.

Unfortunately for Logan, though, his friends were just a distraction. He still had to figure out how to confront this whole camcorder problem.

His idea of confrontation of this involved constantly reviewing the footage, over and over.. and over.... and over..... whenever he could slip away, he was back to reviewing that footage like an autistic kid and their favorite cartoon. He was studying, trying to find anything that could help them in the future. All he found was a reflection of himself.

The way in the very first entry Jackson's eyes were so full of life, and while scared, he was so curious. That life, all that light slowly faded. Dripping out of his soul every entry, like water from a sponge being squeezed. His voice faltered and cracked. His movements slowed and shook.

He was alone this whole time.
He had been alone. This whole time.

Logan had at least some people to call his friend, and even then, if protection was put of the question... he had his people to help him through it emotionally. All Jackson had was a camcorder to talk into. There was no hands to hold, or hugs to lean into, or whispered words saying: "Hey buddy, it's gonna be okay. We'll be alright. We'll get through this."

And every single time Logan saw the light in Jackson's eyes to make room for the terror he was reminded of all the times it happened to him.

He watched it over and over until he couldn't watch anymore. It was too repetitive and horrible.

For a while, Logan let himself forget about the camcorder. His friends were important too. He wanted to help them escape. They needed to, they needed to go back to their families.

It was another night being spent together. Monopoly? Bracelet making? Snacks? Hell yes brother, the whole nine yards and then some.

"AIDEN STOP!" Tyler yanked on Aiden's hand, catching him red handed stealing from the bank. "This is like the third game in a row that you cheated! Not fair!"

"Guess I gotta improve my strategy. What if I-" Aiden's voice was cut off witb a loud snap from Ashlyn. Not scolding him, but warning everyone in the group.

"Shut up. Hold on- I think-..." The whole room fell to silence. Nobody heard anything.. at first. The more they focused, the more they could hear the sound of thudding and shouting. Specifically in one of the rooms they kept locked. There were also screams. Most importantly screams. Blood curdling, tortured screams from a voice that belonged to a stranger to some, a familiar person to Logan.

"I think I've heard that before. That voice." And also, to Tyler. Everyone (apart from the two injured people) scrambled to sit up, fetching their weapons as they did. After all, there was no telling what was behind the door. If anything, it might not even be that mysterious character from the camcorder. That person might not even exist at all. It might as well just be the realm playing tricks. After all, this place was lacking any concept of harmony. All that existed was violence here.

Upon arrival to the door, their movements halted. Before they could reach the source of the screaming by using the keycard on the door, the shouting and tumbling stopped.

SQUELCH..

RIIIP..

and silence.

Chapter Text

And silence. Such terrifying, awful silence. No more screams or tumbling, no more sounds of life. Ashlyn couldn't even hear breathing on the other side. Something, or perhaps someone, had died.

Beep-beep!

Logan unlocked the door with the keycard, the anticipation and fear boiling in their stomachs like a horrible, disgusting stew of terror. The door opened in time that felt like centuries to them, but was really half a second, and the mystery was solved.

There he was. Jackson, as Logan knew him, his back turned to the door. He was sat on his knees, unmoving. He was facing a dead phantom, who's neck was bleeding a dark, inky black. There was a strange aura to the room, one of dread and uncertainty. The feeling one would get in the pit of their belly that, unlike the butterflies one would get when in love, were the sign of something bad coming. Something sickeningly wrong.

It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Ashlyn, the natural leader of the group, took initiative to move forward first. Even the sound of the one footstep she took was enough to make the boy stand up from his spot, and whip his head around, revealing the part of this scene the four of them weren't able to see before.

Black blood, or whatever liquid runs through the phantom's veins, was dribbling down Jackson's chin. It was splattered on the bottom of his face like the blood of prey on a hungry wolf's muzzle. It wasnt just a small splatter, it was painting the whole lower half of his face black. And it wasnt just on his face, it was dripping down his arms and off his fingers as well.

The way he scrambled away to the corner of the room furthest of the room made him look like a criminal caught red handed with murder. His eyes were filled with a nameless, fearful emotion so strong that no word could possibly describe it. This wasn't the same boy Logan had seen in the found footage. This was a horrified, twisted version. Something had happened within that gap of time he hadn't been able to log any entries. Something scarring.

"Hey there-" Taylor spoke softly, only to be cut off by Jackson. "Stop! Stop it—Stop it—Stop! I-I dont know what you are! Please!" That voice which always whispered in the recordings was increased to a shout of fear, loud enough to startle Logan, Ben, and Taylor, and completely disorient Ashlyn. "Go away!" His voice cracked and screeched. It was ear-splitting and almost painful to even listen to.

Right, he had been alone. And who knows what he had seen behind the scenes, when the camcorder wasn't recording. He probably wasn't aware that there were other people here, in this dimension. The people in front of him were just more of those monsters to him, and clearly from the looks of it, he wasn't too fond of having to deal with anything that could possibly hurt him.

Logan tried to communicate again, but subtly reaching for his gun out of impulse. The action made Jackson realize it was there in the first place, and he immidiately acted irrationally. He sprinting past them before they could react, accidently knocking into Ben's shoulder in the process.

He ran faster than they could catch up with him, and he must have come to a stop somewhere and hid, because Ashlyn couldn't hear him anymore either. They spent the next two hours searching for him, trying to either find his hiding spot or at least coax him out of it. All to no avail.

He was nowhere to be found.

"Well, what if it was a phantom?" Tyler suggested. He didn't look entirely like he was paying attention to the conversation—probably because he didn't entirely want to believe he had to be stuck in this realm with someone new—but that didn't stop him from bringing up a good point. "Couldn't be a phantom-.. at least I don't think so?" Logan replied.

"Really? Why not?" Ashlyn asked in return. The thing was, Logan couldn't really prove it without using the camcorder. Part of him didn't want to do it, but there wasn't much he could do to avoid it while also helping his case. So, with a sigh, Logan left the room to go fetch it.

"I'll be right back."

Aiden sat on the bed with an amused smirk. He hadn't added anything to the conversation since the news was broken about this "new strange person" in the phantom realm. However, now he actually had something to say. "It's sounding a whole lot like this is an actual person. You're telling me, theres a phantom outside thats running around, looking like a person, is afraid of 'not knowing what we are,' and runs away when any sign of violence is shown?"

Meanwhile, Logan was tweaking out. Genuinely tweaking out. The camcorder was completely gone, nowhere to be found. It wasn't where he had hid it, and he practically turned the room upside down and right side up again looking for it. He knew where he had put it, and he even checked on it once in a while just because that was the way he was, and each time up until now it was where it belonged. It was supposed to be in this room, but it wasn't.

Logan returned to the room to everyone else arguing with Aiden and Taylor about why exactly they "Couldn't be sure whether or not the stranger was a phantom."

Taylor thought the stranger was a person, Tyler and Ashlyn didn't, Ben didn't want to jump to conclusions yet, and Logan knew. There was no way of telling with Aiden, though.

"I just think you're being a little close minded, huh? Even phantoms have feelings too!"
"No they don't, Aiden!"
"Well, from what you told me, that phantom was feeling pretty scared, hm? And have you ever seen a phantom kill another phantom? What about a phantom that talks?"

There was a lot of tension in the room, tension that hadn't been seen in the group since those first few weeks in the phantom realm. People actually were arguing again. Not bickering, full on arguing.

"Don't fuck with me Aiden- when have we seen another person in this realm? Other than us? How could they have even gotten here? They werent in the Sorrel Weed House with us on the trip, so how else would they be here?" Tyler snapped, clearly reaching his limit.

"I dunno, but I know that phantoms dont get attacked by phantoms. Neither do they use these."

Aiden held up—The camcorder!? He had it, this whole time!?

He turned up the volume on one of the entries. "-ckson Coronado, entry twenty six—"

Chapter Text

"HOLY SHIT!!" Aiden's voice shouted from the other room. It was the night just after the suprise appearance of Jackson, and his little freak-out that ruined everyone's night.

Aiden and Tyler had been moved to the room Jackson had been found in, just in case he came back so the boys could let the others know. But someone shouting "Holy shit!"? That was scary. What could possibly be in there to warrant such a reaction.

"Get the fuck up off the floor. Youre acting like a damn animal," As Logan entered the room, he heard Tyler scolding Aiden's odd behavior.

"But theres Minecraft here! And an Xbox!! Its gonna be so much less boring having to lay around all-"

"And we're gonna play Minecraft with what power? Idiot."

"Oh."

Ashlyn was soon to enter, trying to see what all the commotion was about. "Are you seriously shouting at the top of your lungs over minecraft," She asked, her tone stern and somewhat annoyed.

"Seems like," Logan unceremoniously replied.

It wasnt out of the ordinary, but at least it was good to know they would have something to do after they got the power back on... And found Jackson. That was the priority, for now at least.

They would patrol around the facility, weapons in hand in case phantoms came out. It was good exercise, and especially good for clearing out the place from phantoms while looking for him. And in the meanwhile, they could find rooms containing things potentially useful to them.

They found the armory, eventually, this time they actually took Tyler and Aiden out and brought them with. Surprisingly, the door was wide open, no keycard needed.. but even more shockingly was that the room was half empty. The walls, having spots for weapons and firearms, laid bare, mysteriously missing the items normally left there for emergency.

What happened to them? And why did it seem like it was only the lethal weapons? It was really strange, especially considering how Logan had misplaced his rifle just a few days prior. Perhaps—no, Jackson definitely had something to do with it.

"That fucker stole our guns," Tyler murmured, almost surprised at the audacity of it all. Now all they had was a few pistols that definitely would have been taken too had Jackson known about them. "That fucker stole our guns, and you guys are still acting like he ISN'T involved with those crane assholes? He's gonna take all our-"

"Shut up! Okay? Ive heard enough about your complaints about this guy, you dont even know him personally! None of us do, so instead of just jumping to conclusions, how about we-"

Before Ashlyn could finish her rant, a sudden, familiar shout came echoing from outside. It wasn't Jackson's this time, but Ashlyn's father. Seeing her pinned down by her own father came as a shock, especially seeing as there were nothing but them and the phantoms in the phantom realm. But here he was, along with the rest of the group's parents, inexplicably here now.

Logan's grandparents were there, Ben's parents and Aiden's parents... all of their guardians. Even Lily was there, which, yes was a bit of a pleasant surprise, but scary nonetheless. Now their families would have to suffer the same nightmare they did every night and it was horrifying.

Their whole familes would suffer now, and none of them wanted to see them get hurt. To watch their loved ones go through the horrors they went through night after night, potentially endlessly if they didn't escape this damn facilty soon. It hurt, knowing that now their families ran the risk of dying or coming in such close brushes with death that they would have to live with for the rest of their lives.

However, that didn't mean it was all bad. They could spend time with the people they cared about, they knew they were okay and could see their faces after what had felt like ages... and most importantantly, plan a way out.

It was strange, though. How after that little "event" with Ashlyn and the infected person, not only did the rest of the group know something had happened, but it brought their families into comas and made them wake up here.

How did she do that? Could the others do the same? Could she... could she bring in those damn scientists and see how they liked being in this hell? No, that was an awful way to think.

Suddenly, as the friend group and their families were talking and catching up, the door quietly cracked open with a slow, loud creak. There stood Jackson, looking less like the greedy, selfish person who stole their weapons, and more like a lost, confused kid.

He was dressed differently this time, a thick scarf around his neck, brought up to cover his nose, and lots of baggy clothes and various types of pockets and pouches. His eyes were wide, darting around the room cautiously, even though he hadn't even entered yet. He was still hiding behind the door like it was the only thing shielding him from his demise. It became clear what—or rather who—he was looking for.

"A-are my parents here too?"