In Search of the Unknown Chaptered Version

Part 3

Content warning: This story has themes of sexual assault and posts traumatic stress, viewer discretion is advised

After the two episodes of the series came out, the excitement was building up. The paranormal and cryptid community was taking interest in it. After seeing the same creature talked about over and over and the same proof given ad nauseam, it was a welcome change. Those two communities were interested in that these groups wanted to have proof of what they believed in. They wanted video evidence of the pool and tar samples from "Sasquatch". This was a bit of a problem for the group because they roped the people in, but now they had to keep their attention. They needed more proof and more evidence since interest steamed on the realness of the story.

Dalen realized this and he needed to demand more work from Trevor and David. David felt fine with this since he worked on the equipment and they only filmed when the script and research were done, he had a lot of time on his hands. Trevor, though resistant to having to work more saw the toll the research was doing on Dalen. Trevor saw how drowsy Dalen had become, and he felt he needed to make sure that Dalen didn't go insane. Dalen could be obsessive, his mind putting a fine grip on anything he found interesting. This made him tenacious and dedicated, but it also made it so that he would stay on a project that wasn't worth the effort. One example Trevor could think of was the time made a short film on the research of the Arctic. Dalen near the end of the project found out that one of the memoirs he read was undeniably false. The story was essentially a tall tale in the frame of actual research. This led to Dalen not sleeping for nearly three days, and not having proper sleep for a few more. Feasibly he could have done a simpler short film and still gotten a decent grade, but that felt too much like "giving up" to him. Trevor wasn't much for seeing Dalen breaking down again in a restaurant after thinking spiders were under his skin.

The most Trevor lost were extra smoke breaks. He does have the feeling he'll lose more sleep over this if it gets worst.

So, they toiled more and more on the research. The kooky stories were thrown out, then the ones spoke about, and finally the stuff that felt real enough to be investigated. Some were very conspiratorial, always describing the feeling of being watched or government intervention. Some of it could be attributed to a misinformed mind or someone who wasn't mentally unwell. They were a bit harder at the start to see if they were real, but the veil would break quickly, some of it quickly turning into hate speech. Speaking about Jewish conspiracy about how Black Psychics were controlling the minds of School shooters. It became clear that they would attract some disturbed minds, which bothered all of them. It worried them that they could be enabling people who need medical or psychological help.

The group became wearier to the stories paying attention to words or thought processes that could originate from delusion. This made going through them so much more difficult.

After a few tiresome days of reading statements, David found something. He even kind of recognize the name of the person. This person was in a few news reports recently. Dalen though felt skeptical of the story when it was presented to him. The story had all the trappings of a Schizophrenic or Dissociative personality disorder. The feeling of being watched and the way identity is put into question. There was a lot of scrutiny on whether it was true. Yet, they do have evidence that the person telling this was real and not some hoax. David was insistent that they should do this one next. He had the feeling deep in his mind that this was real, and that it needs to be told.

Dalen trusted David's instinct and started to write the script for the story. He had a feeling that this story may not be as liked as the ones they made before.

Excerpt of a diary entry made by Former Local News Anchor

Dan Recheck

I know what you might be thinking, I'm going insane, that this is just late-born Schizophrenia or some other mental illness, but I won't listen to you. I am not Dan Recheck; this is not my skin that I wear. This isn't my hair, my clothes, my house, my job, this isn't my life. I'm not even the same sex.