Lady Luck

10

    "Don't fall asleep, (Name)... Just stay awake..."

I grumbled to myself under my breath as I leaned my head against the window of the bus, desperately fighting against my drooping eyelids to stay awake. Another night had passed, and thanks to my newfound awareness of my sleepwalking it had been a pretty rough one. In a very meta twist, throughout the night I kept dreaming that I was sleepwalking, and would wake up while trying to stop myself. So yeah, not one of my better nights, and by morning I wasn't exactly "rested".

Drowsy or not, though, I still had a bus to catch. Checking the Reddit thread at the library was a big priority for me, so I dragged myself to the bus stop to hop on the first one. Let's see if this was worth it, I thought to myself as the bus finally reached the library, and before long I was seated at a computer opening up Reddit. A tired smile touched my lips as I saw my inbox in the upper corner was full of messages. Looks like my efforts weren't in vain after all. With that happy thought I quickly went to the thread, only to freeze and stare in shock.

2,134.

That was the number next to the title of my post on Reddit, the up arrow highlighted in green. And my shock only grew when I saw nearly one thousand comments under the title. For a while I just stared at the screen slack-jawed, totally stunned. I'd expected a few replies and upvotes, but this? This exceeded all expectations. Slowly shaking my head, I clicked on the topic and started reading. I already knew there was no way I could read all of these replies in just one hour, but I could try.

Many of the comments addressed similar points and topics, like asking if I had a history of drugs or hallucinations. Other people suggested I might have been hallucinating possibly due to a fever, and may want to see a doctor as soon as possible even though four months have already passed since then. Pretty typical stuff like that. However, the most common mention of all was something called "Marble Hornets".

Marble Hornets this, Marble Hornets that. This belongs in the MH subreddit, mark your stuff as fan fiction. Et cetera, et cetera. Funnily enough, the term wasn't new to me; I'd seen it several times during my searches. All the stuff I saw were links to videos or speculation threads though, and it only took a glance at one thread to conclude it was just some made-up web series. Something about a guy looking into tapes from his pal's student film and bad stuff happening to everyone involved afterwards, I didn't read much before deciding it was nothing worth looking into.

Reading through the rigorous debates on my post about whether my story was fan fiction or "canon" made me wonder though. Several people compared my story to events in the series, debating about inconsistencies between my story and the Marble Hornets canon. Most notably, they kept referencing something they called the "Tall Man". Apparently, my monster was very similar to it. Even my brief mention of Hoody spawned some discussion, because apparently there were also two masked people in Marble Hornets and I might be using an OC based on them.

Curiosity piqued, I soon opened another tab to search for Marble Hornets in Google. Not like I had any other leads, so I might as well look into it a little bit. Speculation threads about it abounded, and as I clicked on them and began reading, soon I found myself engrossed in the storyline. The series mainly followed Jay's investigations, uploading both older tapes from the student film and new videos about present developments. While the Tall Man played a large role, there were other players such as "ToTheArk", a mysterious person who uploaded videos containing cryptic messages and codes. Alex Kralie, the director of the original tapes, also became a threat after a certain point in the story.

Then there were the "Masked Man" and "Hooded Man", two mysterious men in masks. Fans couldn't decide, well, anything about them. Some said they worked for the Tall Man, some said they worked against him, some believed they supported Jay and others thought they didn't because they also tended to attack him. Lots of mixed signals, apparently. People couldn't even fully agree on their relationship to each other, since apparently the Hooded Man occasionally showed some animosity towards the Masked Man's true persona.

Just about the only points they agreed about was that they both hated Alex Kralie and that the Masked Man was a split personality. One of the entries revealed him to be an actor from the film named Tim, who Jay had met and interviewed shortly before the Masked Man's first appearance. Even so, later on he sought out Tim again to help continue investigating through some lies about working on finishing the film, and despite a big blowout when he found the truth, Tim kept investigating.

I found all this out by viewing the threads and detailed spoilers about the series scattered online, reading through them in a daze-like state of fascination. It was only when reading another thread about the Masked Man and Hooded Man that I finally snapped back to reality. Not because of photos or the speculation or anything, but because of one of the replies. The poster referred to the two by nicknames while discussing their own take on the theories, shortening their titles to simply "Masky" and "Hoody".

Hoody.

Suddenly the my mind flashed back to standing in that abandoned building, watching the yellow-hooded man in the black mask stand over the drug dealer's corpse with a bloodied pipe. Just like that, everything else about that awful night came rushing back, and I finally remembered the whole reason for looking into Marble Hornets in the first place. Eyes darting to the clock in the corner of the monitor, I mentally cursed as I realized my hour was nearly up.

My mind raced as I looked back to the threads, trying to figure out how to make the best of what little time I had left. There was no time to search and watch any of the entries, and even if there was it probably wouldn't matter. Signs posted around the computers made it clear that the computers didn't have working speakers, and since none of them had headphones either that may hamper my ability to watch the videos. However, that didn't mean I couldn't still answer the most important question of all.

In a stroke of inspiration I quickly went to Google images and typed "Marble Hornets Tall Man and Hoody" into the search bar. A desperate last attempt, hoping to get pictures of both of the characters in one go. People must have taken screenshots of some of the videos, so with luck I'd find them right away. Pressing enter, I held my breath as I waited for the page to load, casting an anxious glance at the clock one more time.

When I looked back at the images, I found myself staring at several pictures of the faceless monster which haunted my dreams.

My stomach immediately lurched at the sight, a chill running down the spine. While I had searched it in hopes of finding out what it was, I guess part of me didn't actually expect to get any results. Yet there it was, captured in several pictures filled with visual tears and static. I was so stunned by the sight that I didn't even notice the other photos of a yellow-hooded man right away, and when I glanced at them I quickly recognized it to be Hoody.

Here it was. Proof and validation that all of my experiences that night were real, that the monster wasn't a figment of my imagination. And it was part of a fictional series of videos on the web. I'd hoped that by finding out more about this thing, I could get some closure. That the nightmares would stop, and I could move on. Instead, it had the opposite effect. I was more desperate for information than ever before, left with more questions than answers, and I definitely needed them.

I didn't have time to think much more on it, as a librarian suddenly appeared to tell me my time was up. My mind raced as I left the library, still trying to absorb everything. I needed more. I needed to find out more about this whole thing, and I couldn't wait until tomorrow. My feet seemed to take a mind of their own as I walked along, and before I knew it I was standing in front of Tim's apartment knocking on the door. After about a minute it opened, revealing a surprised-looking Tim.

"(Name)?" he asked. "What're you doing here? You don't usually come on Mondays."

"Can I still borrow that crappy laptop you mentioned?" Looking at me in slight surprise, after a few moments he shrugged and opened the door.

"Sure, why not? Not like I'd be using it anyway." Gesturing for me to follow him inside, he headed to his room and soon emerged from his bedroom carrying a black behemoth of a laptop along with a bulky charging cable covered in bright yellow electrical tape.

"You have a limp?" I asked as I noted a slight change in his step from usual, and he shrugged.

"Old injury. It only shows when I carry heavy stuff. And trust me, this thing weighs a LOT." Setting the laptop on the table next to his half-eaten lunch, he quickly plugged it into the charger before turning it on. "It's pretty slow and will take a few minutes to boot up, and the charge is pretty bad, so you'll have to use it here."

"That's okay." I really didn't care if he found out what I was doing anymore, my sole priority was to find out more as soon as possible. As we waited, he went to the kitchen cabinet to get his medicine, using a half-empty glass of water on the counter to down the pills.

"So, what do you need it for?" he asked casually as he took the cup to the sink to refill it. "Still looking into that monster from your dreams?"

"Kind of," I allowed. Admitting that the monster might be part of a fictional series of web videos probably wouldn't reflect well on my sanity. Then again, he still didn't know that I'd actually seen it in person, and I was pretty close to bursting with this information. So I decided to take a chance and tell him about the series anyway. "By any chance, have you heard of Marble Hornets?" Immediately Tim paused, his body tensing as he faced away from me.

"...Marble Hornets?" he repeated without looking at me. Something was off about his voice, but in my excitement over my discovery I didn't really pay too much attention and just kept right on talking.

"Yeah! It's this series of videos online about some guys investigating a bunch of old tapes from a student film project. All kinds of crazy stuff starts to happen, and they keep seeing this weird faceless monster called the 'Tall Man'—"

Before I could finish Tim suddenly slammed the glass on the counter with a loud wham. Startled, I jumped in surprise and immediately fell silent, staring at him in surprise. Spinning on his heel, he stalked over and slammed the laptop shut, yanking the cord out of the wall. "Forget it, I changed my mind," he said flatly, his voice devoid of emotion. "You can't use it after all." I just stared at him in silence, so stunned by his sudden change in demeanor that I couldn't even think right away. Slowly, though, my mind started working again, and I frowned.

"What? What are you talking about? What's going on?"

"I just remembered I have a doctor's appointment," he replied briskly as he carried the laptop towards his room. "Go home." My frown only grew, not buying his story one bit.

"If it was just that, you wouldn't be so snappy," I argued in a low tone. "Tim, what's REALLY going—" Suddenly something clicked in my head and I stopped mid-sentence. Gears slowly started turning in my brain, and my shoulders sagged as I stared at his retreating back, my eyes widening. No way... It couldn't be... It just couldn't... Right? But it made sense. It made perfect, horrible sense. The first time I opened my mouth no sound came out, suddenly too dry, but after closing and swallowing I tried again and my voice came out clearly.

"You were part of Marble Hornets."