Look Closer [Countryhumans x Marble Hornets]

ONE: findings

As he sat in the dim corners of the room, in front the brightly lit computer of which its brightness he never really cared to turn down, Mal concentrated his eyes fully on the blinding screen as he continued to let the video render. When the video was just about 44% through with the uploading, he sat back in his chair with a sigh. Why does uploading have to be a total pain and be this troubling?

This was his fifth entry, and although with such a small but rising community on Youtube, he still couldn't contain his surprise when his entries managed to garner some attention. He's already received a few messages asking for him to upload more of Singa's tapes, and of course he was more than happy to oblige, but so far his investigation has yet to receive any useful insight from any brainstorming viewer.

They all kept constantly asking about the mysterious man that has been seen in Singa's tapes.

If only Mal had an answer for each of them, but he was just as confused as they were. After all, it was the primary reason why he even bothered to struggle through Youtube's meddlesome uploading policies in the first place just to get even one of these up.

He wasn't even sure if Singa had an answer for it, but then again, he did give these tapes to Mal albeit through some coercion. If he did have an answer, he wondered if Singa would have still gone through with giving him the large amount of tapes...

There was no telling who that man was, anyways. What Mal could see of the man's features was a black suit, his anatomy abnormally tall and slender... and Mal wasn't sure if it was the quality ripping of the camera, or if he was hallucinating... but one outstanding feature of him was that he was completely faceless. No eyes, no mouth, no hair... nothing on where his face supposedly is.

As soon as Mal saw heavily clear glimpses of Him in a lot of unrelated Marble Hornets tapes, his mind no sooner began trying to rationalize exactly what he had seen that was stalking Singa.

It could have just been wearing a tight white sack over its face to conceal his features. Mal has once heard about a man who owned elongated limbs due to a growth disease, and this stalker was probably no different. There wasn't quite any way to explain why he was wearing a business suit at all times.

Besides that, there was also no plausible reason to explain why exactly he targeted Singa. Mal tried to think a little harder about the colleague who he hasn't seen in a while, but the memories about him came up a little blurry as he tried to flash back.

One thing that stood out to Mal as a potential reason was that Singa did belong to a somewhat wealthy family, but if he remembered correctly, his family cut off ties with him when they found out that he decided to pursue an artistic career rather than becoming an accountant or something that would guarantee a large paycheque. The stalker could have known this and was aiming to kidnap him for a ransom, but there was no time to think about if his family would even be willing to pay for their "disgraceful" son in the first place.

No time to think about that.

Singa did have a load of friends, but there was only really a few that stuck with him. That was made clear when he started the production, most of his friends were extremely doubtful whether he could make his project work, so only a very few ever attended his auditions for actor casting.

But he wasn't sure what point that had to make relating to his stalker.

Singa was an ace grader, for sure. He was diligent, never stalled for time, had a need for punctuality and discipline in himself, and sure enough, was intelligent. He was the type of student that regular teachers wanted their pupils to be like in college. He even gave lectures about other people's learning habits whenever the opportunity presented itself, and Mal, being one of Singa's close friends back then, was no exception from it.