WILDGULCH JUNIORS MOVIE NIGHT

[bratsquatch]

Who: Wildgulch juniors
When: The night of January 2nd (*this is backdated to yesterday*)
Where: Wildgulch junior girls' room
What: They watch a mystery VHS
Warnings: Language probably

It's their first night back from break, which means two things: it's time to reassemble Big Bed™ and it's time to watch Felicity's mystery VHS. She stands at the door in her leopard onesie and swings her arm in a large exaggerated circle, waving everyone in like a third base coach. Come in! Find a spot on the large make-shift bed! Get comfortable! Once everyone is settled, she walks to the front, and stands beside a TV and VHS player she "borrowed" from a distracted Muggle Tech Studies TA.

She addresses them dramatically. "Ladies and gentlemen. Familiars and friends. Tonight we have a very special treat." She slips the unlabeled VHS out its Ghostbusters 2 box and holds it before them. "A film of mysterious origins. Full of unknown content. Will it be spooooky?" She rattles the VHS in her hand. "Or scandalous?" She fans herself with the VHS. "We find out, together."

And with that, she pops the VHS into the player, presses play, and jumps into the pile of bodies and blankets.

And this is what they see:

The frames of the unlabeled VHS tape pull a bit at first, distorted, but the image is clear: it's the volleyball scene from Top Gun, fifteen or so seconds of muffled and grainy footage, as though recorded from a television broadcast. Then, abruptly, the scene cuts to a man in a tweed suit sitting at a desk in a yellow-walled room. The camerawork is simple, not quite amateur, but certainly no better than a local commercial.

Frames tear again before the man behind the desk starts to move, and we catch up to him mid-sentence, "...not the great vastness of space, but here, just hiding, beyond the veil." The man, middle-aged and white-haired, smiles the smile of a minister, warm and welcoming. He is excited to share what he knows with you, the viewer. "In him, there is more knowledge, more power, than the sum total of humanity. In him, we may come to—" the film chops and stutters. "—t-t-t to know i-i-i-infinity."

A flicker, and then the screen goes black. Black, but not still. Something in that darkness writhes, barely visible with all the grain, and faintly, a sound. A song. Is that... Bob Dylan? Twenty seconds of dark slithering and song play, cut by bursts of static, before the tape ends.