Static fills the screen, an image of trees only barely visible through the scrambled mess. Whoever was using the camera at the time seems to have been filming the local wildlife, as there are brief glimpses of birds and squirrels among the noise. A moment of discoloration stands out among the distorted images, as the motion behind the static stops for a moment. Soon, the scene changes.
This section of the film is degraded nearly as badly as the first, but the view never changes. Hours of film record the same scene - a blue-coated earth pony mare, sitting on the front porch of a cabin in a forest. She rarely moves from her position, keeping a constant vigil on the clearing around the cabin, and occasionally snapping her head to one side or the other, as if in reaction to a noise, though the recording reveals nothing but occasional birdsong.
A brief distortion appears near the mare, similar to what preceded the previous cut in the film. The mare gets up from her seat and approaches the camera before, once again, the scene ends.
The blue-coated mare is sitting in the corner of an empty room, keeping her back to the wall. As the static clears, it reveals a boarded-up window to one side. The mare rubs her eyes, now visible as bloodshot and baggy, and addresses the camera.
“It’s been a week I’ve been trapped here. A week since I’ve seen the sun, or talked to anypony, or slept, or...”
She sniffs and runs a hoof through her grey mane, staring off to one side for a minute before vigorously shaking her head and continuing.
“Okay, sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. Let me start over. My name is Screw Loose, and I don’t think I’m going to leave this room alive.”
She laughs once, and then sniffs again.
“I know it sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. You’d think I’d be lying here crying or screaming or something, but it just... it’s just all so unreal. And it started with that.”
She points a hoof directly to the camera.
“A birthday gift from my sister. I’ll never get to thank her for it, but then maybe it’s nothing to be thankful for, considering where I am now. Dropping by the party and then two weeks out of town. Great timing, Shoeshine. But it means you’re not stuck here with me, so I guess that worked out for the best. It was a great party, too. I really do wish I’d thanked Pinkie for it. She called it a, um... ‘Birth-And-You-Got-Better-Day Party’.”
She starts and leaps up to all four hooves, watching intently towards the far side of the room. She remains that way for a few minutes before relaxing and dropping back to a seated position again. She takes a deep breath.
“Sorry, I’m rambling. I do that when I’m tired. Look, there are things out there. Predators. They hide everywhere. In shadows and around corners, behind you and in the corner of your eye. Always just out of sight. And most ponies never see them. But I did. I know about them, they know I do, and now they’re coming for me. And now...”
She trails off, glancing to the side again.
“Now you know. I am so, so sorry, but I had to do this. Somepony had to know what happened to me. Maybe if more know about them, maybe we can do something. Maybe if we prepare they can’t hunt us anymore, won’t feed anymore. I hope so, or else I’ve just condemned another pony. But just...”
She sniffs again, rubbing at her eyes. Some time passes before she recovers her composure and continues. The only sounds during brief interlude are faint scratches, too faint to tell if they were captured at the time or are merely the product of the damaged recording.
“Just let me tell you the whole story, okay? I know it’s not as important as just getting the word out, but... Maybe it’ll be easier for me to take if other ponies know how it happened. Like I said, I got the camera at a party. It was such a great party, and it helps knowing that the last anypony ever saw of me will have been such a happy day. But, the camera. I was like a foal with a new toy, recording everything on the way back home. You probably saw those parts already.”
She suddenly jumps to her hooves again, spinning to face the opposite side of the room from the one she’d addressed before. Her eyes are wide and her muscles taut, reacting on instinct as any pony would and preparing to flee.
“Not getting in that way, you monsters. I took care of that already.”
Once more, she relaxes slightly after a moment, but this time she doesn’t sit back down. She just shivers and turns back to the camera.
“Sorry, running out of time. I keep forgetting, just too tired to keep track. But it started there. Just a little funny... color or shape or something. Right there in the corner of my eye, something didn’t look quite right. And then it was gone. But I knew I saw something, because I felt it. Felt them. That’s when they started watching me, and I could feel them there. You know what it feels like. Everypony does. That feeling of something with you when you’re alone, like somepony sitting behind you. The feeling that makes us turn on the lights in the next room because we’re afraid of what might be in the shadows there. We all know it because we’ve all felt them, because they’re everywhere. They’re everywhere and once you notice you know they’re watching you.”
She begins pacing in front of the camera, her pace erratic but driven by her ever-more-rapid speech.
“And now that I knew, more of them came. I kept feeling that little chill across my withers; that little bit of pressure behind my neck that said I was not alone. Noises in the night like hoofsteps and snakes and whispers. I knew something was out there, and I knew I had to find out what. So I got my camera back out and set it up outside, and then I waited. I waited and waited, and I kept feeling them watch me, but they never came close. I was out there for hours, and they never even got close until the very end! Like they were taunting me! Maybe that’s what they do, maybe they just want us afraid first before they come. But eventually one came closer, I know because I felt it there! I could feel it so close but when I turned it was gone, and that’s when I knew I had one. I went and got the camera and rewound it, and started going through the frames and then I saw it! I saw it and now there are so many and I wish I never had! This bucking camera!”
She spins and slams a hoof into the side of the camera. The picture is lost briefly, but soon returns to find her lying on the floor, spit by a hairline fracture across the lens. Her flank and tail are visible, as well as one hindleg, but her face is off-screen. Minutes pass, occupied only by the scratching sounds and her sobbing, and interrupted at times by a choking cough. A loud crack interrupts her.
“No, no, not yet... You can’t come in. I wasn’t done with my story yet.”
She pulls herself upright and rights the camera as well, slumping back against the corner as she wipes her eyes dry again, the fracture in the lens splitting her image into almost perfect halves.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. This is the only way I can let anypony know, now. But I won’t try to describe... the thing. I can’t. I guess I don’t have to, because I didn’t record over that part. They really started to target me after that. I haven’t slept since then. I’m not sure I could have anyway, after seeing it clearly like that. But I couldn’t let myself sleep. Can’t let myself sleep. If I let my guard down, that’s when they’ll come. Now that I’m alone and there’s nopony to see. I boarded up everything, blocked myself in with whatever I could find. I’ve been watching for them for... for... I don’t know. Days, maybe. I haven’t seen the sun. Haven’t eaten. Haven’t slept. Just watching for them.”
She yawns, then shivers again and begins rubbing a hoof across the opposite foreleg. She twitches at a loud knock.
“They have me where they want me. They’re going to come soon, I can feel it. But I’m alone, and there’s nopony to look out for me. Nothing to stop them but the boards, and they’re going to get through those. That was never going to keep them out. I was so stupid to even try to escape this way. I should have gone back to Ponyville. Been around everypony else so they’d be seen. But I’d have been alone walking back. Maybe they’d have gotten me then.”
Another loud knock. She slumps further down the wall and curls up slightly.
“Never be alone. When you’re alone they know you’re an easy target. That’s why you feel them when you’re alone, because you’re not alone. You’re never alone. Alone is when they size you up. They’re there, watching, waiting in the corner of your eye. Just waiting for you to be alone and let your guard down.”
She yawns and rubs her eyes again.
“Sorry, running out of things to say. Just... don’t let them catch you. Watch for them, watch the corners of your eyes, and never... never be...”
She slips further down once more, her head dropping onto her chest as sleep finally takes her. The only sign she’s still aware at all it another twitch at a third loud knock, this one accompanied by another crack and a scraping noise. The camera falls over again, the picture remaining on Screw Loose until it hits the floor and, with a burst of static, goes black. The recording ends.
******
I’ve reviewed the recording, Miss Snowheart, and while the contents were disconcerting to say the least, we must consider Screw Loose’s history. While it is unusual for a video recording to experience degradation of this extent without magical influence, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the blow and two drops the camera suffered caused the distortions. In the absence of any further evidence of the creatures Screw Loose claimed were hunting her, we have to press forward with the assumption that her disappearance has a more mundane explanation. Let’s just hope she doesn’t hurt herself before we find her.
- Twilight Sparkle
Author's Note
I was listening to “Selected Ambient Works, Volume II” by Aphex Twin as I wrote this, and it was written while alone in the house, at night, in the basement office, because apparently I hate being able to sleep at night. Also, the present tense “found footage” conceit of this story was surprisingly difficult to write.
