Vermillion

by JLB

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 5978

A highly interpretative account of a series of poorly explainable events told from the point of its most reliable participant. The camera.

A camera case for a Crystal-tech personal recorder was found near a PHPD office in the city slums. Under the remains of what seems to once have been a poorly fabricated copy of an actual, Crystal Empire-made, novelty video recorder, a number of functional crystal records were buried.

The following footage is not advised for low rank officers and PHPD detectives not given the Comissioner's viewing permission. In case of continued accidents, access will be restricted to Enforcer and/or Princess-approved personnel.

Any hallucinations of shadow figures and inexplicable noises following the viewing of these recordings should be reported to the psychologist and the Paracriminal Division or Exorcist Corps.

---

Part of a prequel one-shot series to a much bigger fic, currently in the works. Draws heavily from certain materials, but does not act as a cross-over. Can be classified as Horror, but the site lacks such a tag.

Same series as VIS_016.evi, Nick and Penny, Vis-a-Vis, and Styx Enterprises.

Published 2014-11-29 01:50:16 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-29 01:50:16 UTC

Won't Let It Build Up Inside Of Me

The crystals hum lightly. A slight buzz marks the start.

“We live in an era where our cities are protected with magic and unity, where our benefactors barricade our minds.”

The color balance is severely off. A nearly pitch black shape moves in the middle.

“It doesn’t change the fact that there exists a lot of strange phenomena. Bizzarre beyond reason, or logic.”

The voice is chewed and stutters on some sounds. Sometimes, it stops altogether, only to continue at a faster rate.

“Most folks… just don’t see them. That’s because we cling to order. To any tiny happiness that comes our way. We bust our humps to blind ourselves with our desires and pleasures.”

Everything shakes. A soft clunk accompanies the spastic movements.

“There’s a world of darkness out there.”

It brightens to an almost clear picture of a pair of dark purple eyes, blinking and moving as the fuzzed words continue to sound.

“Beyond time or space. A world with evil that is undeniably real. And in that world, there are things that run wild.”

The numbers in the right top corner change spastically from the proper 0:48 to a variety of other digits, no longer representing the due length.

“And who are we to assume that that world is so thickly veiled?”

The frame fades to black. A series of loud buzzes and clunks is heard, the picture is no longer comprehensible. The screen shakes visibly. After a period of silence, a distorted sigh is heard.

“Screw this, I’m hopeless. Why am I even trying?”

With a sudden drop, the picture clears and shows an earth pony stallion sitting by the recorder, his snout slumped on the table.

“Like the role even matters anymore.”

A high-pitched noise and a stutter indicates the start of the recording. The buzz is almost completely drowned out.

“Come on, you piece of crystal crap. Work.”

A number of static pictures flashes by as the camera catches up with itself.

“Ugh… why does it have to be so complicated? Where’s your “on” button?..”

Momentarily, a shot from the previous segment blinks in the feed. Shortly afterwards, the earth pony’s face is on again. He is aiming the oculus at himself, his foreleg shaking slightly under the weight of the mechanism.

“Is that it? It’s blinking. Fragile, yet devious. Right.”

Some minor distortion appears as the camera is rotated around the room, abruptly stuttering a number of times. It is a small apartment with cheap furniture, with evident signs of minor disrepair visible.

“Oh, geez… I’m seriously just talking to myself. What have I come to?”

The color is thrown off as the camera is centered around the operator again. Visually, he is in his late twenties, has a messy, dark mullet of a mane, and two clear lines of sideburns.

“Well, I guess that’s it. I can’t help it. I mean, this is for practicing and stuff, but… I just can’t do it anymore.”

The video feed cuts back to the dark shape moving in the middle of the screen from the previous recording. It overlaps with the pony’s muzzle briefly.

“I guess I’m going to literally talk to myself right now.”

A loud exhale is heard and the camera shakes. The shaking continues for seven seconds as the owner is heard cursing.

“Damn legstrap, why is it even… to hell with that, I’ll put you on the table. Yeah, I’m calling it a “you” now. Great.”

The camera is now in the same position as it was at the end of the previous video. The stallion looks into it. The colors briefly restore themselves to a closer representation.

“Well… here we go. My name is Masky. Like I don’t know that myself. But, well… I don’t know, maybe someone finds it. Why the hell anyone’d even search for it, I don’t know, but… screw it, I digress.”

He is of a faintly teal shade, his mane and facial hair much darker, almost black. There are large bags under his eyes, and his mouth is cracked. Small particles of grease are planted between his eyes and directly on his snout. He has a rather thick stubble. One of his forelegs has an old, worn bandage on it.

“So… okay. So, what’s wrong? Well…”

A high-pitched noise takes over the audio for several seconds. The picture is extremely choppy and filled with artifacts.

“...ter question is “what’s right?” Because, well… It’s all going to hell. It’s been going there before, but now it really is. And I… I don’t know what to do anymore.”

A dark line comes over his eyes and, for a few moments, there is no picture.

“I… I’m pretty sure I’m going to die soon.”

He sighs and rubs his eyes with his hooves. As he looks at the camera, an audio glitch cuts back to the introduction segment. It stops shortly before the part where he mentions someone possibly searching for the recording.

In the meantime, he picks the camera back up and settles it on his shoulder, walking through the apartment, and to a window.

“...so, okay, maybe I’ll just go figure this out now. Look. Look there. Tell me you see something.”

The frame is maneuvered so that it shows the view from the window.

It is a dark urban area, either located under a large natural cover, or encompassed by night. The view is from a fourth floor window, overlooking a poorly lit street with non-torchbug lights flickering incoherently in sign of suboptimal maintenance. Several equine-shaped patches of darkness can be figured out in the poor lighting, but the lack of video quality and numerous artifacts make it impossible to discern anything clearly.

“Do you see it? Just tell me it's there. I want to know. Just… no. No, screw that, no, no, no.”

Masky retreats back to the partly ripped couch he had been sitting on, and drops the camera back on the coffee table.

“I don’t want to know.”

The time digits show the number 98:89.

“...like there was ever any chance… I got the role, sure, but now I had to stay in this freezing hellhole. I never should have gone here. I shouldn’t have gone for the money. Shouldn’t have tried to run away.”

The next video starts without the usual signs. It seems to cut into the third minute of the recording. The footage to go before it is completely erased.

“Shouldn’t have brought Verm here.”

Masky is lying on the same couch, his body being more visible than his snout. He is staring at the ceiling, where a shadow of a fan is seen. The pony is undernourished, and the parts of his coat that are not covered by a worn grey sweater are badly ruffled. He barely moves as he speaks. His voice is almost monotone.

“Just… ditched the company. Went for the big bits. Goodbye, Mr. Long Town. Goodbye, the backwoods Vanhoover theater. Hello, the Great White Frozen Fucking North and its cash.”

A dark shape emerges in the middle of the frame once again, its corners stretching slightly in direction of the earth pony’s face.

“I wish we just got conned. Lost our money, maybe lost our goods, and went back home. But… Verm… She's... She's the only one that makes me—”

As the stallion gulps, the audio stops, and the video suffers a major glitch. Frames overlap over one another. Masky is seen simultaneously lying on the couch, sitting on it, his face slumped into the table, and sitting on it, staring right into the camera is distress. The artifacts permeate the video for over twenty seconds.

“Well, that’s my confession for the night. I’m done. I think the vendor doesn’t want the camera back anymore. I guess I’ll just keep whining until it’s all over.”

The video brightens unnaturally, showing Masky on the couch in almost black and white. An equine figure is seen, but not heard, treading the hallway.

“Yeah… right… all over.”

The fan seems to have ceased functioning, as its shadow is completely still, and Masky does not move either. In the imbalance of color, Masky’s cutiemark finally appears in full. It is an actor’s face mask, normally split into a happy and a sad part. Masky’s appears to have a frown on both sides.

“Can’t let it build up inside of me.”

The video ends in silence, as the figure crosses the corridor again.

“Can’t let it build up inside of me.”

A series of low-pitched grumbles is heard. A badly distorted buzz indicates the start of another video.

Masky is already in the frame, sitting at the same table, looking at the camera sat upon it. He is holding something with his hooves.

“I… I figured that since last time I spoke about Verm, I might as well... ugh, this is stupid.”

He shakes his head and huffs. Ultimately, he puts the object he had been holding in front of the camera.

“This is my Verm. Vermillion Sky.”

It is a framed photo of a light pink mare with a long mane of mixed yellow and reddish colors. Her cheeks are rouged, and her eyes are styled with mascara. She is wearing what seems to be a stage outfit for an old-fashioned lead role. Her eyes are light blue, and she looks down from the photo in evident mock disdain.

“My partner in crime. And… well, in general. We’re really close. Always together ever since we’ve met. We even both have crystal pony blood waaay back in our bloodlines - heck of a coincidence. Like… Like we’re meant for each other. She’s the best actress I’ve ever known. Scratch that, she’s the best pony I’ve ever known.”

Masky smiles for the first time in all of the videos. A video artifact pops up, cutting away a section of his mouth, turning his face into a pixelated mess as he continues to talk.

“We’ve played together for years. And, well… been together for years, too. She’s… She is…”

He sighs harshly. For over forty seconds, he looks down in silence. Afterwards, the video feed stops for over a minute, only indicated by how the ceiling fan shadow no longer moves. When the picture and sound return, Masky is still in the same position. He speaks only seventeen seconds later.

“Was. She was. I’ve given up. She was. She’s not coming back.”

The stallion struggles to breathe for a few seconds, and, as he chokes up, the same dark line glitch shows up over his eyes.

“She… she… She went missing two weeks ago. She just left. She was with me, and when I woke up… not there anymore. None of her things were taken, the door was locked, the keys weren’t even moved, and… I got nervous. Then, even worse. The police tell me not to worry, but… no. It’s not happening. For any of us.”

He moves the picture to face him with shaky hooves.

“She’ll never play that role she always wanted to do.”

Masky’s mouth curves jerkily, almost turning into a smile. The pixelation intensifies.

“She… Verm always played prime roles. Heroines with taste. You know... Real Dahlias. Bathed in possessions. They barely write them like that anymore. She… wanted to do something different. Didn’t want to be type-cast, you know? Like I was. I’m always the bad guy. I always play villains. Jerks. Power-hungry, inequine monsters. I’m fine with it. She wasn’t. She wanted something new.”

The stallion’s mouth is obscured by the picture, and remains this way until the end of the video. From that point on, it is only possible to tell if the feed has stopped by the shadow of the fan and the blinking of his eyes.

“The play we were called to do… They were doing this thing, on that incident that happened two years ago. When Nightmare Moon came down from the, well, moon. They barely do historicals anymore - especially that recent. So we jumped at the opportunity. And, damn, when we saw the paycheck… I’m not sure whose eyes got bigger. They just… They just wanted us for it. It was perfect. They actually changed the script to fit us in! Me, I mean. There wasn’t a male antagonist, and they didn’t want to make me play a mare. So they made changes here and there. They actually weren’t that awful. I read the drafts. Verm’d play that… pink one, whatever her name was. I’d—”

From that point, the video is a still image of Masky staring at the picture of Vermillion. At thirty-five seconds into the recording, the scene becomes pixelated, and incoherent, gurgling sounds are heard.

The next entry is corrupted beyond repair. The only frames coherent enough are of Masky evidently walking around the apartment with the camera mounted on his shoulder. There is no original sound, as the only audible portion of speech is a glitched repeat of Masky’s words about Vermillion having gone missing two weeks ago.

Rhythmic, nearly melodic, gurgling, roar or scream-like sounds fill the entire recording, but are far too obscure to tell whether they somehow belong on the crystal or are the product of video corruption.

The video after that starts abruptly, with Masky looking right into the camera, now mounted somewhere by the apartment door, in front of which he stands. He looks at the camera in anger, yelling profusely.

"Today! Today, we deceive our better selves! You, and your cold, black resistence - what worth does it have in the end? You scatter about, finding comfort in every last inch of the perpetual gehenna we're forced to populate, and yet you find imaginary visages to cherish and worship! Do you wish to do us all a great service? Your face! Put on your face! Show us why we had to simply comply through all these years of lies and travesty! Show us why the community doesn't feel any better than it used to be, show us whether you know, whether you know the answers, whether you know yourself. Because noone seems to know you now. Our world is blind! It doesn't care! And it never did. But maybe, we will. We will take away your fake comforts and imaginary warmths. We will bring reality back. We will take this world off the butcher's hook and make it our own. It is all a stage, and we are merely actors - but us, we wish to be the casting commune!"

Throughout the entire tirade, the earth pony keeps a coherent tone and rhythm, spelling out with direct pronunciation. His eyes are rolled back for the entirety of the three minutes of performance.

As soon as he finishes his speech, he drops to the floor, only his short, dark tail visible within the frame. The door creaks open for two seconds. A faintly pink foreleg is seen entering the shot before the video cuts off.

“Can’t let it build up inside of me. Can’t let it build up inside of me. Can’t let it build up inside of me.”

The video starts with a coherent series of beeps and a buzz.

“Here we go.”

The camera is shoulder-mounted once again. It is carried through corridors that were not visible in the apartment.

“I’m gonna show you “undeniably real”.”

The electric hum of an electricity generator, rapid clops on the floor, and Masky’s words are clearly audible. In addition, loud noises seem to be coming from behind one of the doors.

“Come on! Right here! I know it’s here, alright, I’m not an idiot! Just get it over with. I’m done waiting.”

The stallion stops and looks around what seems to be the interior of the apartment complex he lives in. The passage he was crossing is brightly lit by a lamp located above.

“I know you’re there.”

He growls, huffs, and walks up to the door behind which sounds are heard. His forehoof is visible, knocking on it. Three seconds later, as it remains locked, Masky roars and begins to seemingly crash into the door repeatedly, barely keeping the camera intact.

“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE! SPIT IT OUT!”

A loud crash marks the first glitches in the video. A hissing noise covers the near entirety of the sound, further obscured by loud noises coming out of the apartment that had been opened, and the picture begins to show signs of poor compression not present before.

“The shit, dude? The whole thing is... like... sick.”

“Do you see it? DO YOU SEE IT? IT’S—”

The audio is completely missing from that point on. What can be discerned from the picture shows that the door is either open or missing, and an equine, something strapped to its back, is standing at the doorstep.

For approximately eight seconds, Masky and the figure appear to be conversing. Afterwards, the camera makes a sudden lunge at the figure, and the feed cuts out before impact is made. The same dark shape that filled Masky’s face in the first recording takes up the last five seconds, visible on a static-filled background.

The video starts with a singular beep.

“I don’t know when it started. Maybe at a rehearsal, maybe sometime else. We were mid-production. It was going well.”

Masky is looking into the camera, placed on the table, as before.

“I just started seeing things. I know I was just seeing things. There’s this… this dark figure at the edge of your eye. You blink and it’s gone. Like if there really are daemons at the North... I mean, it's bullcrap - they've all went way down south a long time ago, but... You feel watched. You feel like there’s always something else with you. Eyes keep twitching. Throat keeps drying. You fall asleep, and… and you don’t remember how long you slept.”

The bags under his eyes are even darker than before. His jaw is shaking slightly. There are bread crumbs stuck in his stubble.

“We realized something was wrong when I went to sleep, and when I woke up… when I woke up, it was three days later. We checked everywhere. Cops, government, everywhere. They’ve been already looking for us - and we just woke up in our apartment.”

He rubs a few of the crumbs out of his facial hair, and bites the hoof they were stuck on afterwards.

“It happened during our time in the North. Definitely. I… I have a hunch. One day I woke up and felt like I forgot something important. Just like that. Never paid much attention to it, but now… something is very wrong. I don’t know what’s going on. Verm suggested that we even contact the Princess…”

The stallion buries his snout in his hooves and muffled laughs can be heard. By their end, the audio makes a drop in pitch, severely changing the sound.

“...and, well, I told her off. I don’t remember why. I just did. And now… now, here’s the fun thing. I black out whenever I try to contact anyone. Last time I did that, I woke up three days later, dying of hunger, and on the camera was a video of me talking to it about my and Verm's careers. I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough even back when Verm disappeared.”

He lowers his hooves, opening up the eyes. The black line artifact returns over his eyes and stays over them for the duration of the recording.

“Since then, it… It’s been bad. I forgot… forgot about everything. So, I… I only remembered to try now. I’ve even got a camera now. It even works, that’s, that’s great. So, I tried it. Okay, I… I need to explain. Maybe to myself.”

Masky’s eyes shoot back and forth quickly, and he gulps before speaking again.

“This, all this, the camera stuff, it’s for a reason. One, I’m going insane. I have to certify that. Right there. Never did before. I’m going insane. So… I need someone to talk to. Someone reliable. Two. I’m probably going to die soon - I’ve already said it before. Moving on. Three.”

He looks straight at the camera and lowers his hooves, showing the entirety of his snout. His eyes remain glitched, and his mouth appears to be pixelated to the point of unrecognition.

“I have to figure out what is going on. Maybe not even for myself anymore. Did I get that? Do you hear me? Hey, you asshole?”

The camera shakes and clunks as it is gripped by hooves and moved right in front of two moving, blinking, dark purple eyes.

“This is your reminder. You’ll wake up again and not remember anything. This is to remind you. You've begun to fall apart ever since she's left. This can't happen anymore. Look at yourself, Masky. Keep this thing going. All the time. You understand? And watch the old recordings when you forget. You WILL forget.”

When the camera is distanced, Masky’s face had become a misaligned black blot.

“You always do.”

Before the recording ends, the date marker switches from showing it as the eighth recording to the second. After that, it switches to eight again, then ninth, then eighth again.

The recordings to follow are all marked with minus six.

“Dum-dum, da-dum-dum-dum.”

There is no time indicator on this entry. It starts abruptly, in darkness.

“Dum-dum, da-dum-pum-pum.”

From faint shakes in the frame and quiet wails of wind, it can be assumed that it is taken at night, outside.

“Mmm-hmmm-mmm-hmmm-hmmm-hmmm.”

At one point, there are rather loud ruffling sounds, then replaced by clopping on stone.

“Can’t let it build up inside of me.”

The voice is extremely distorted, to the point where it is impossible to tell whether it belongs to a pony or is artificially engineered.

“She isn’t real.”

A bulging light appears in the middle of the frame, but seems not to belong to the original picture.

“Can’t make her real.”

The light is quickly covered up by the dark, moving mass from previous entries.

“And what do I do?”

The audio for the next forty seconds consists of worked huffs, sounds of struggle, panicked screams, and a garbled noise, similar to the rhythmic gurgling heard before.

“I put on my face.”

The video starts with a clear beep and buzz, but the picture for the first half of it is completely glitched.

“Okay. Okay, I did it. I filmed everything. Filmed myself sleep. Alright? I watched the tape. Are you listening? Masky? You’d better be.”

Masky’s voice is more coarse, he huffs much more, and sometimes stops for breath.

“Because I didn’t see none of that. There is no way. That last crystal? I’m recording it all, putting it on crystals, and marking them. I’ll even put them in a case. You’ll see it. It’s twelve, just after eleven, where I say I’m going to. It’s supposed to be me sleeping.”

When he stops to cough more, the pitch drops once again.

“It isn’t. It’s… you’ll see it. I saw it. I… I saw it. And it has to end, Masky. You’ve got to do it. I’m… I don’t know if I have the words to describe it.”

The stallion begins to stutter, and faint knocking is audible, coming from relatively the same place where he is positioned.

“But you’ll get it. You’ll rewatch and get it. And you’ll do it. Because I can’t.”

The video comes back online at that moment, showing Masky staring at the camera and tapping his forehoof against the table.

“Because… I’m… I just don’t want to. You do it. Not me. We’re different, anyway. You’re not here. You just sit and listen. Me? Oh, no, I’m just telling you what to do. This is not my fight. You do it. You go throw yourself into the fire. I’ve been making these for you, no, no, no. You do it.”

His ears drop down as his eyes enlarge. He backs off into the couch, shaking and twitching.

“No. I’m not going to do it. Can’t let it build up inside of me. That’s what you said. That’s what you sing. Can’t let it build up inside of me.”

His jaw begins to quiver and his eyes roll back. Tears begin to drop from them.

“She isn’t real. I can’t make her real. Not anymore.”

As the earth pony convulses, he hits the table with a forehoof, and changes the camera position. It now shows an open window with dim daylight outside, and an open bottle of pills. His forelegs seem to reach for it a number of times, but eventually, it is tumbled over, and the recording goes on for three more hours before finishing without any prompt.

The video starts with a series of gurgling sounds and what sounds like drums.

Masky is filming himself with the camera leg-bound. The couch and coffee table are visible behind him. His face is very brightly lit, with cracks and pale patches covering most of his coat. His greasy mane waves slightly as wind throws it back. The stubble has almost grown into a beard.

“I’ve been looking into things.”

The camera glitches out once again, centering the image on the couch instead, where the dark blot from before appears to have formed. It persists throughout the footage of this entry.

“I’m… not so sure anymore. I looked for that thing I kept seeing. Didn’t find it. Even with… confirmation bias, I didn’t. I can’t tell.”

His eyes are much wider than they were before, and he talks somewhat slower in comparison.

“The thing is, well, what I found out… I guess I know why the guys from below don’t like to come out much when I’m nearby. Floors three to one, there’s kind of a bit of a crowd here, musicians, artists... typical outskirt city stuff, just bigger because it's far from Canterlot. Never around when I am. I’m alone, and, simultaneously, I’m not.”

His mouth stays open for approximately ten seconds as he stares into the distance. Eventually, he closes it manually, with a hoof.

“So, I… apparently, I tried to kill one of them. Shade. His name’s Shade, I think. I looked at him on the tape, and… Dammit, this is all wrong. I just… I just assaulted someone because they looked dark. Like that… that thing. And that guy’s completely white! He was just standing in the shadow!”

Masky’s eyes roll back again and he twitches in place, coughing incoherently. The audio cuts off as he does. The black bar artifact pops up over his eyes again, and his mouth becomes pixelated as well. It goes on for twenty seconds, after which he sharply returns to the same position he was in, and continues the speech without any addressing of what had went on.

“Basically, I’m becoming a danger to society. I’m just… I give up. I’m giving myself up. I don’t care what happens now. It’s been all feeling… unreal, anyway. Like none of this is really happening. Like it’s all a dream. A nightmare, really. A hallucination, and I’m just dying in the snow, robbed by the griffon raiders from the border.”

He gulps and his eyes turn to face something standing behind the camera. He stammers much more severely as he speaks.

“I-if you’re hearing th-this, and, and you’re me, then s-something is ver-ry wrong.”

There is an equine shape visible at the doorstep. It was never open throughout the video, and becomes so within a single frame, as if a piece of footage had been cut. What little of the lighting falls on it shows a faintly pink coat color. Its snout is obscured by something white.

The video starts up with the usual bleeping and buzzing, but in a much higher pitch.

The camera is strapped to Masky’s foreleg once more, and he is walking backwards, treading unsteadily on three legs.

“This is very important.”

His eyes are bulging and bloodshot, and he licks his lips every few seconds. With time, small parts of old skin start to drop off from them. His sweater is covered in some liquid. It is impossible to tell the original color of it due to color desaturation.

“I’ve solved it. To hell with all that. I know what it’s all about.”

He walks through the few rooms of his apartment. It is late at night, and only a few crystal and electric lamps act as light sources.

“I know how to fix it all. How to remember. I just never saw it before. Now I do.”

He turns in place and now walks forward on three legs, the camera remaining on one of them. It is the fourth room Masky had crossed, although what was visible of his apartment before only had two.

“It’s all very simple. If I fail - you’ll know what to do. I’m talking to anyone. Me, Masky, you, doesn’t matter. You… You just have to see this. It's all fake. All my life's a fake - all our lives are a fake. We're just... constructs. Made with some reason, and we just don't know it. We come up with connections that aren't there, stuff that doesn't make sense, all that - I've solved it. I know now. I know what we do.”

The stallion pushes a room open with the camera hoof, tilting it slightly. The artifacts that begin to litter the picture are highly unlikely to have come from the impact.

“All you need to do in order to fix everything…”

The frame entails a closet which is occupied by an equine-like creature that can not be identified any further due to overpresence of digital artifacts. It is clear that it is not of normal pony build, but the exact characteristics are fleeting due to the low quality of transmission.

“...is put on your face.”

Masky walks right into the creature, and the video cuts off with a loud gurgling scream that splits into more similar ones before the sound of drums starts to permeate the sound track.

A single frame at the end appears to be an out of order shot of Masky’s head peeking out of the door while the camera is mounted on top of the coffee table.

He is wearing a plain white mask.

The letters “L A E R” appear to be super-imposed on the crystal recording. A split second shot of a highly distorted-looking equine figure standing at the end of what looks like a long hallway appears.

After they are shown, the dark background is replaced by the moving image of the black blot that had been recurring through the entries. It shifts in place and shakes as if it is an actual entity filmed by the camera.

The letters “R E H” also show up in the given order. A split second shot of the stallion holding Vermillion's picture appears.

The audio starts with a low pitched noise. It then develops into a cacophony of sounds that can not be identified as audio glitches. The closest approximation is a song.

The letters “E K A M” appear one by one starting at 05:54:64 of the recording. A split second shot of the stallion holding an empty picture frame appears.

As the audio remains coherent, the video begins to distort, the black mass slowly brightening up via evident post-production editing.

The letters “T N A C” appear all at once at 05:98:89 (sic) of the recording. A split second shot of a light pink pegasus mare holding an empty picture frame appears. Her face is obscured by the same black bar and pixelization mess glitches.

The blot is eventually cleared into a static picture of a plain white mask fit for a pony, two darkly colored eyes (proper color identification is impossible due to artificial brightening) staring from behind the eyeholes. It is not clear whether it is a still image, and the shaking is simply another glitch, or a continued recording - the eyes appear not to blink once throughout the whole video.

It goes on for five hours fifty minutes more. At the end, a buzz and a series of very fast beeps are heard over the sound of incoherent words said in a voice tonally different from Masky’s.

It has since been assumed that this entry is recorded in reverse. The sounds heard during the first - accordingly, last - part of it form a very rough representation of a song that does not currently match any styles that the Canterlot Expert Board can recognize. Local specialists have identified a possible independent music influence, but at the given moment, no research can be performed.

This is the last in the string of evidence connected to the murders of multiple citizens, notably Marble Hornet and our unidentified friend “Hoodie”, among others. The guy on them - or the mask, at least - are far too much like what the Hornet case witesses reported. The recordings are severely damaged, and we currently lack for video experts that could restore the parts lost. The only ones that could fit are taken up by the Enforcer.

In addition, it would be really nice if someone could explain to me just what the SHIT does one do to Crystal tech to get it to fuck up so badly? Because I’m starting to suspect you numbnuts, noone else can possibly be this ass-backwards, not even in this city. This is starting to go way, way against my drift. You don’t want that. I’m talking about the Equicide Division in particular. We need this masked perp found, because he’s our best bet. Bastard’s clearly insane. I’d bring in that Shade character in for questioning, but guess what, he’s also one of Enfie’s closest comrades. So we’re on our own.

And don’t expect a raise if you do figure out who the fuck is causing assholes with Crystal blood in them to disappear all over the city. The only clue worth mentioning was literally dropped at our doorstep - and guess what again, the only suspect for that is the asshole who has been strangling ponies in electricity the past few months, and that’s someone YOU should have caught A LONG TIME AGO. Be glad if you keep your job once this season is over, Equicide Division.

I've got to point out, too - none of us have any idea who this Vermillion Sky character is, or what play these poor bastards were acting in. As far as we know, there aren't even any theaters in Pierce Heaven - and there aren't any other cities within a big enough radius for southerners to even consider them, either. Maybe if we had a better freaking catalogue of coming-in ponies, but that's on the Canterlot assholes, I can't even blame you. As far as we know, noone can recognize her. Maybe if anyone finds out, digs through Vanhoover archives, maybe then I might think about a raise. Key word being "maybe". You're all still walking my last nerves. One more fuck-up like the undead vampire griffon (!!!) thing and your hope is gone.

By the authority of Princess Celestia, the Pierce Heaven Police Department and the Frozen North Emergency Patrol,
or some shit like that, no official fuck reads this anyway,
Commissioner Hoover.

Author's Note

I know, the whole Paranormal Activity shtick has long ago ran its course. But that was a while ago - besides, I like to think that I've rammed it far enough that it makes sense that a camera even exists in this universe. Just give it a chance, eh?