May of 2009.
Mal felt pretty eager to finally get off his butt and declutter the mess that littered all around the floor of his apartment. Not to throw shade that this guy is a potentially messy person who cleans his house probably once every year, but he was just feeling happy that the spirit of cleanliness finally decided to pay him a visit and give him a little tip that he should really clean this mess up, even if his parents wouldn't bother to visit him anymore or even if his friends are coming over... it wasn't like he had anything interesting going on during this month anyway, he's graduated, he's free from school, he has a part time job, he keeps in touch with his friends, his life could be considered as how a normal adult life could get without crossing the norm line.
Oh, and he lives alone, so maybe that's an added bonus and an excuse for him to not clean up every month, even if going around the house becomes more and more of a hassle everyday, but at least he's finally getting himself together.
And honestly, it was pretty relaxing for the most part. Just the sound of his computer playing some classic music as he went around the house, trying to find every last bit of mess he could clean up. Once he deduced that the whole living room and his room are done, there was only one place left to check, since he had lots of things to store.
The closet.
He was frankly a bit afraid of opening up the closet, afraid to see what horrors could be in it. He was certain it could be clogged, and that he was gonna be plummeted with so many old stuff that he forgotten he'd place in there, or maybe so much dust has collected on them that it's going to be a sensory and coughing nightmare once he opens up just a crack.
Nevertheless, Mal took a deep breath. He has his cleaning mask on, he was prepared for the dust and cobwebs that were bound to have amassed over the months that he has not opened the closet for.
He opened the door and quickly stepped back, and sighed in utter relief that none of the things in there had fallen upon him. In fact, he was hit with surprise instead; he hadn't huddled as much things in the closet as he had thought he did. Or perhaps it was the closet back in the room of his parents' house was what he remembered instead... it's sometimes hard to remember that you're an adult when you've been treated as a child for so long.
Though, he was right about the dust and cobwebs. So many spiders has made a territory in his closet, but luckily he wasn't too afraid of spiders. He unfortunately has to get rid of their home though, and he has to bring all these stuff out to clean the closet before he could shove more things in there. He has plenty of boxes full of old college files, wasn't he just excited to get them out of his sight and make his rented apartment look more pleasant.
He unstacked all the things that were already in the closet out of it without much of a difficulty, though he was wondering why college has to be an absolute mental purgatory with all these stuff he has to keep on him...
Though, when he had almost cleared out the last of the antiques in his closet, he saw something right sitting in the back corner of the closet that didn't look like college books.
A couple of large hunkered plastic bags with tied openings sat there, and at that second, Mal couldn't process whether or not those were trash bags he must have accidentally thrown in there while he was sleep deprived and had mistaken it for the dumpster.
He set down the box he was holding and carefully walked in there as to not let any cobwebs get stuck in his hair, and he crouched down. He slowly untied the openings albeit how absolutely dusty and slightly disgusting it was, and he saw something that looked like plastic in there, though with how little the light from the outside was penetrating through the aperture, it was at first hard to tell what were those supposed to be.
He cautiously dug his hand into it and pulled one of the many plastic thingies he apparently had stocked up.
Though, within the second he had pulled it off and registered its shape and size, Mal instantly remembered what they were.
Tapes. These two bags contained a heavy load of tapes.
But... why were they here? What were they for again? What were they supposed to contain?
Upon trying to remember the origins of these tapes, Mal felt like a huge chunk of his memory regarding these tapes was missing from his brain. He doesn't remember where he collected so many tapes from, and why were they in his closet.
He was a film student, of course, but he doesn't remember--
...
All his questions were suddenly instantly answered at that very second when he remembered his third college semester.
Where he had been helping a friend work on his very own ambitious film over the summer of 2006. Where he had been the script supervisor for it. Where production gradually grew dissatisfaction. Where his friend had eventually halted it, and soon enough, cancelled it. Where he had requested to take its production tapes for himself upon hearing his friend's answer to the question of what he wanted to do with them.
"Burn them. What else?"
An old friend, to be exact.
-----
June 20, 2009
A video has been released on the Youtube website, where said website was only in its early days and people only released whatever they wanted to, and Mal was no exception. After he had finally sorted out his closet and his apartment became much more liveable and comfortable, he instantly brought the plastic sacks into his room, where his camera was there so he could watch these tapes.
During this past week since he had found these tapes again, he had been busying himself watching all the tapes, and quite a lot of them stuck out to him, much to his surprise and delight.
However, something in him compelled him that he should publicize his investigation. Post it somewhere, perhaps the Internet could be somewhat of help. He didn't know why, but he had felt an abnormally strong urge to post his findings on the Internet, where many strangers who potentially don't know any better than he did, but it was still worth a shot. After all, this was 3 years ago, many things could've happened since then. He hasn't seen said friend ever since he cancelled production and moved away to a new college, he hasn't seen anybody else who were involved in the production either.
Anything could have happened, and whatever he had seen on these tapes only solidifed the mystery behind those happenings.
His friend had broke contact with him, and the only people Mal ever really kept in touch with from college were his two friends who had nothing to do with the project at all. He even tried getting one of said friends, Indo, to try and get in touch, but it was just last night when he finally broke the news to Mal, "no avail".
Regardless, Mal doesn't think his contact is important now. He's been away for 3 years, and Mal could only hope that nothing particularly bad has happened.
His only source and help guideline could only be the Internet, which is why he had to start up the channel under the name Singa had entitled his failed student film project with: "Marble Hornets".
That was when Mal released his first video, on June 10, 2009, titled "Introduction".
The following clips are raw footage excerpts from Singapore.
A college friend of mine.
In 2006, Singa was in the process of shooting his student film, entitled Marble Hornets.
Over the three months that this took place, his film crew complained of his increasing levels of stress and irritability.
Near the end of shooting, Singa halted production indefinitely and dropped the unfinished project.
He told me it was due to the "unworkable conditions" on his set, which was less than a mile away from his house.
I asked what he planned to do with the countless number of tapes he had filled.
"Burn them."
Being a film student myself, I hated to see all of his work go to waste.
And after some coercing, he agreed to give them to me, under the condition that I never mention it to him again.
Soon after, Singa transferred to another school and I haven't seen him since.
At the time, I was too unnerved to look through the tapes, and eventually forgot about them.
And last week I found them filed away in the back of my closet.
After three years and zero contact with Singa, I've decided to look through them.
All the tapes are unnumbered and missing timestamps. Other than taking place in the summer of 2006, it's impossible to determine the exact order or date of each.
I've looked through several of them, and I've found something that convinced me to upload them to keep as permanent record.