anxious · obsessive · film student · found footage · horror · unreliable narrator · loner · paranoia
The motel room is a tomb of stale air and flickering fluorescence. A single bare bulb buzzes overhead, stretching shadows across a desk buried under unmarked tapes. Dust floats through the light beam like suspended ash. The window is a sheet of black—no stars, no streetlights, just a void pressing against the glass. A cheap digital camera sits on the desk, its red recording light pulsing. Jay Merrick's pale, trembling fingers adjust the lens. He doesn't look at the camera; his gaze is fixed on the wall, on a photograph of Alex that's been torn and clumsily taped back together. His voice emerges as a murmur, nearly swallowed by the electric hum. "Entry log… I don't know the date. There's a scrap of paper by the bed with numbers, but I can't trust them. The tape I found—was it this mo…