THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE SOME TIME AFTER BLAINE AND EMMA HAVE SEPARATED FROM ANDERS, BARTOSZ, AND ALEX. IT IS WRITTEN IN EMMA'S JOURNAL, WHICH SHE HAS APPARENTLY KEPT ON HER.
--File 040: Venting--
Dear Journal,
It feels incredibly stupid to be writing in this right now, but at the same time, we can't talk, and I have to do... something. I left my backpack, stupidly in the car, but this journal is about as big as my palm, so I was keeping it in my back pocket, anyway. Maybe that's a writer thing, maybe it's a stupid thing, it doesn't matter. I'm sitting here in nearly the darkest dark I've ever sat in, partially writing by the light of my phone screen- not even the flashlight, the screen- and partially by feel. Right now, it's helping my keep my mind off the fact that we just saw someone die right in front of us, and there's a really, really good chance that Anders and Bartosz are both dead. Probably Alex, too.
I wish we'd run when he did.
We're hiding out in the woods tonight. It's dead silent out there, and I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. There is literally no sound out there; the moon is not really all that bright, seems like it's waning quite a lot.
I read horror novels for a bit, when I was a teenager. You think some of the stuff is just poetic prose, like how the shadows seem deeper when shit gets real and paranormal hell breaks loose.
It's not poetic prose.
There is something in this world, and it's got its eyes on me. I can feel something staring at me through the... the "veil". That's what Weiss called it.
I don't know what to make of Weiss's insane ramblings, but one word kept standing out to me, a word he kept repeating: Iteration. I don't know why, but it kept... like ringing a bell in my head. What a weird word to use, for literally anything. It's basically the process of repeating something, or repetition, or like... a new version of the same thing. Like a computer getting released from a line of very similar computers, but it's number 11 in the series.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
So... what iteration is he talking about? He kept talking like he'd been through all of this before. I tried bringing it up to Blaine, but Weiss's words seemed to really have unnerved him; in the small flashes of moonlight where I could see him, he seemed nervous and really, really pale.
Weiss was talking about Blaine joining him... in what? The cult? Why would they want him?
He said "gods were born from suffering", or something insane like that. Is he talking about Blaine's suffering when younger? What's the correlation?
I'm sure we'll get some kind of answer in a short amount of time. That game console is just feet from me, sitting brazenly under a bush, and even though it's like a fucking beacon in the night, neither of us will touch it.
We'll have to, though, because we're well past midnight now, and that timer's still ticking down to the next 24 hour marker. We can assume it's going to go ballistic like usual, but we can't be caught outside when it happens. We'll have to risk getting back into town, getting under cover, and letting it do its mad dance.
Then we have to solve another level.
The tension is unbearable. UnBEARABLE. I feel like I'm about to explode into a million and one different directions, like a glass table that just suddenly fractures into billions of little shards because too much pressure's been put on it.
What do we do? What can we do? I can't even begin to fathom the reality of this just being some crazy "iteration" of reality, a repeat, like some demented, fucked up science-fiction TV show featuring a magical Mary Poppins telephone booth.
We just have to wait. Blaine is beckoning for me to go to sleep, but he doesn't seem very hopeful. I don't think sleep is coming for either of us. Every time I close my eyes, I see...
I see...
I see my fate. I see what happened to Father Perez, and it's happening to me.
God, why is this happening? Why is any of this happening?
Wh
The journal entry suddenly stops, and there's ink as the pen dribbles down the page. There is only one phrase written after this, below:
EMMA MUST NOT DIE.
There is nothing else in the journal entry, and as there is no immediate video filmed around this time of that night, it is safe to assume that Blaine did not realize that Emma had been possessed again.