@apophenist​ | didn’t ask for it, gets it anyway
Alex’s face is illuminated by the grainy footage playing on screen—a digital upload of an old VHS tape, complete with all the flickers and blemishes and low resolution that entails. They’ve already checked; it’s old footage, not footage made to look old. It’s amazing how many people try that trick on them, since the podcast took off. Some people just wanted to be a part of something, she supposes.
She hits the space bar, pausing the footage, and then taps an arrow key with slow deliberation to rewind frame by frame. Tap. Tap. Tap. Backward. Tap. Tap. Tap. Forward again. There’s no denying that the figure in the dark window glass appears and disappears, but even with her more kindly view on the supernatural, it looks like someone dressed up in a stupid wig with some drugstore halloween makeup plastered on.
Hardly black tape material. Strand would laugh her out of the building. She closes the file and deletes it, then loads the next.
The sound of the main office door opening gives her pause. It’s almost 2am; Nic left long ago, as did the intern. She’s been alone in the office for the best part of six hours, and she can’t imagine why anybody would come here this late. Realising she’s holding her breath as she strains to listen, she lets it out slowly, and keeps her eyes focused on the studio door.
The thirty seconds she waits feels like a lifetime. And then the door is pushed open, and there’s Strand. Just Strand. Alex can’t help the rush of relieved breath that spills from between her lips, and the line of spine softens.
“You scared me,” she says. “It’s entirely too late for you to be here.”
