[The feed flicks on to a shaky view of the forest. The underbrush is thick, and for a moment a hand is visible, reaching out and pushing aside a curtain of vines. Whoever is filming looks to be about three miles in.]
[After roughly thirty seconds of this, there’s a voice.]
I’ve been walking for what feels like an hour. Maybe more, maybe less.
[He speaks with a disinterested Alabama drawl, but there’s a quiet, choked anxiety to what he’s saying. If he’s trying to sound neutral, he’s not quite succeeding.]
I don’t know if this thing is actually connected to the internet, or if it just looks that way, but if anyone’s...if anyone sees this and knows where I am, that’d be…
[He trails off, and eventually the sound of footfalls on dry leaves fall quiet as well. He turns the camera on himself. He’s a young man, scrawny, with wide-set eyes shaded by the brim of a baseball cap. He doesn’t look directly at the lens, his gaze twitching toward the trees.]
If this place is...where I think it is--and I mean, not too many other options, after what happened, and if there are people who can see this, I have a question.
Has anyone here seen a--a girl about my age? [He stutters, and his voice speeds up.] Brown hair, past the shoulders, doesn’t look like she’s slept in…? [He winces.] Jessica, her name’s Jessica Locke, and I need to know if she’s here.
[He starts to pace, and the camera dips lower, revealing the edge of a red stain on his shirt.]
And I guess, if you haven’t seen her, there are others, like--like Amy W█̤͕͖͙̖-- [The last name is lost in a blip of static. He continues rattling off the names quickly, like he’s gone through the spiel too many times before.] --Brian Thomas, Seth Wilson, Sarah Reid…
[He pauses. Deliberates.]
...Tim Wright?
Alex Kr͔̕a̡̻█͕̣͟█̜̜̜█͓̖̬?͇͕̖̻̼̀ [Another burst of static, longer this time. Again, he doesn’t appear to notice.]
[Something catches his eye, and he tenses up. The camera drops away from his face, and the video blurs as he jolts forward, leaves crunching underfoot. Just before the feed cuts, he mutters something barely audible.]
--where it takes you--