~ Summary: you are so excited about your new passion project revolving around the Blair Witch legend and the 1999 movie! But youāre most excited that your two best friends Satoru and Suguru are joining you on your project!!
~ trigger warnings (low): mentions of potential murder, child murder, and mention of mob violence/lynching
~ authors note: do not plagiarize or feed into ai, I recently finally made my way to watching āThe Blair Witch Projectā (1999) and the āBlair Witchā (2016) and I really like the first movie! Especially since we didnāt actually see the Blair Witch like we get to in the 2016 movie. Honestly, Iām not interested in watching the Book of shadows sequel but the others gave me a not so original idea but no one else has written it so thatās what Iām here to do!Ā
I've always believed that the best stories are the ones people are afraid to tell.
That's what I was thinking about when I spread the printouts across my coffee table of grainy photographs, newspaper clippings, and forum posts I'd compiled over three weeks of obsessive research. My apartment was small enough that the living room doubled as my editing studio, and right now it looked like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. Red string would've completed the aesthetic, but I'd settled for color-coded sticky notes instead.
"You're doing that thing again," Satoru said from my couch, his long legs stretched out, one arm draped over the back cushion like he owned the place. He probably spent more time here than I did, honestly. "That manic documentary filmmaker thing where you forget to blink."
"I don't forget to blink."
"You absolutely do." Suguru's voice came from my kitchen, followed by the sound of my cabinets opening and closing. He was looking for the good coffee, the expensive beans I kept hidden behind the pasta because Satoru would brew them wrong- too weak, too much water, an absolute tragedy. "Should I be worried? Last time you had that look, we spent six hours in a cemetery at 3 AM."
"That was good footage," I said, defensive.
"That was trespassing," Satoru corrected, but he was grinning. "And you're right, it was great footage. So what's the obsession this time? Please tell me it involves less potential jail time."
I looked up at him, and something in my chest did that stupid flutter thing it had been doing lately whenever he smiled at me likeā¦ like I was the most entertaining thing in his world. Satoru Gojo had that effect on people. It wasn't just that he was unfairly attractive, with those ice-blue eyes and that shock of white hair that should've looked ridiculous but somehow didn't. It was the way he looked at you, like you were in on some cosmic joke together, like the two of you were the only real people in a world of NPCs.
Suguru emerged from the kitchen with three mugs, the good coffee successfully located. He'd pulled his dark hair back into a bun, and he was wearing that expression he got when he was indulging me, patient, slightly amused, and fundamentally kind. Where Satoru was all sharp edges and chaotic energy, Suguru was steady. Grounding. They balanced each other perfectly, and somehow, impossibly, I'd ended up as the third point in their triangle.
We'd been friends since college, the three of us. One of those instant connections that felt like fate, though I didn't believe in fate. We'd met in a film theory class, bonded over our shared hatred of pretentious student films, and somehow never separated. Five years later, they were still the first people I called when I had an idea, the first people I wanted to share things with.
Sometimes I wondered if I needed them more than they needed me.
I pushed the thought away. Not helpful, not now.
"Okay," I said, accepting the coffee Suguru handed me. "You know how I've been researching American urban legends for the documentary series pitch?"
"The one you've been working on for eight months," Satoru said. "The one that's going to make you the next great documentary filmmaker, win you a Sundance award, get you out of editing corporate training videos for a living-"
"I get it, thank you." I shot him a look, but there was no heat in it. He wasn't wrong. The corporate work paid my rent, but it was slowly killing my soul. This project was supposed to be different. Real. "I think I found it. The story."
Suguru settled into the armchair, cradling his mug. "We're listening."
I took a breath, trying to organize my thoughts. This was the part I was good at. The pitch, the passion, making people see what I saw. "The Blair Witch Project, 1999. You guys know it, right?"
"Found footage horror," Satoru said immediately. "Three film students go into the woods to document a local legend, they disappear, their footage is found later. Launched an entire genre, made like $250 million on a $60,000 budget, traumatized a generation of moviegoers."
"Exactly." I started sorting through my printouts, finding the right ones. "But here's what most people don't know- the Blair Witch legend they were documenting? It's based on a real storyā¦ sort of. In 1785, in Blair, Maryland, a woman named Elly Kedward was accused of luring children into her home and taking their blood."
"Charming," Suguru murmured.
"The townspeople tied her to a tree in the woods during winter and left her there to die. She was never seen again, and the legend says her spirit haunted the woods, taking revenge on the town. Children disappeared. Hunters went missing. The whole town eventually abandoned the area." I pulled out a photograph of an old daguerreotype of a stern-faced woman that may or may not have been Elly Kedward, depending on which internet forum you believed. "But here's the thing- I've been digging into the actual historical records, and I think the Blair Witch legend is a cover story."
Satoru leaned forward, interested now. "A cover story for what?"
"For murder. Collective murder." I felt the familiar thrill of discovery, the pieces clicking together. "Think about it, a woman is accused of something horrific by children, with no real evidence. The townspeople don't give her a trial, they just tie her to a tree and let her freeze to death. That's not justice, that's a lynching. And then, conveniently, she becomes a witch, a monster, something that justifies what they did. Every bad thing that happens after from missing children to dead hunters- it's all blamed on her ghost instead of, I don't know, the fact that they lived in the wilderness in the 1700s and bad things happened."
"So you think the townspeople created the legend to absolve themselves," Suguru said slowly. "Made her into a monster so they didn't have to face what they'd done."
"Exactly. And it worked. For over two hundred years, Elly Kedward has been the villain of the story. But what if she was just a woman? Maybe she was strange, maybe she was a healer or a midwife, maybe she was just someone the town decided to scapegoat. And now her name is synonymous with evil, and no one questions it."
I could see them both processing this, and I pressed my advantage. "That's the documentary. We go to Burkittsville- that's what Blair is called now, and we investigate the real story. We recreate what the Blair Witch Project crew did, go into the woods, document the legend, but we also dig into the historical truth. We interview locals, we look at records, we find out who Elly Kedward really was. We reclaim her story."
Satoru was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "You want to go into the woods where three filmmakers famously disappeared."
"They didn't actually disappear, Satoru. It was a movie."
"A movie that convinced half of America it was real." But he was smiling now, that reckless smile that meant he was in. "I love it. It's ambitious, it's got a hook, it's got social commentary. When do we leave?"
"Wait." Suguru held up a hand, ever the voice of reason. "Let's think about this. You want the three of us to go into the woods in Maryland, camp out, and film ourselves investigating a legend about a murdered woman who may or may not haunt the forest. For how long?"
"A week," I said. "Maybe two, depending on what we find. We'd need to do interviews in town first, establish the legend, then go into the woods. I've already mapped out the locations from the original film- we could hit the same spots, show how the legend has evolved."
"And you think this is safe?" Suguru's dark eyes were serious. "I'm not worried about ghosts, Y/N, but those woods are real. People do get lost. People do get hurt."
"We'll be careful," I said. "We'll have GPS, satellite phones, proper camping gear. We're not stupid college kids with a handheld camera. We're professionals."
"We're professionals who edit corporate training videos," Satoru pointed out, but he was already pulling out his phone, probably looking up the location. "Okay, I'm seeing the town. Burkittsville, Maryland. Population like 200 people. Middle of nowhere. This is perfect. When were you thinking?"
"Next month? That gives us time to prepare, get the equipment together, do preliminary research." I looked between them, trying to gauge their real reactions. Satoru seemed enthusiastic, but Satoru was always enthusiastic about my projects, sometimes to the point where I wondered if he actually cared or if he just liked the chaos. Suguru looked thoughtful, which could mean anything from "I have concerns" to "I'm already planning the logistics."
"I'm in," Satoru said. "Obviously. This is going to be incredible."
Suguru was quiet for a moment longer, then nodded. "Okay. I'm in too. But we do this right, proper preparation, safety protocols, the works. And if anything feels wrong, we leave. Agreed?"
"Agreed," I said, relief flooding through me. I hadn't realized how much I needed them to say yes, how much this project had already become tangled up with the three of us doing it together. "Thank you. Really. I know it's a lot to ask-"
"Stop," Satoru said, waving a hand dismissively. "We're not doing you a favor. This is going to be fun. Besides, you know we'd follow you anywhere."
He said it casually, like it was obvious, like it was nothing. But something about the way he said it made something in my stomach squirm, and hide the too wide smile on my face that he brought out. And somewhere inside me, I had one of those feelings where you know that this moment will stick with you forever.Ā
I shook it off. Too much coffee, too much research, too many hours staring at grainy photographs of dark woods. I was psyching myself out.
"Okay," I said, pulling my laptop over. "Let me show you what I've found so far. There's this forum where people discuss the actual history, and some of the posts are wild. There's a guy who claims his grandmother knew Elly Kedward's descendants, and another person who says the woods are still cursed, that people see things-"
"What kind of things?" Suguru asked, moving to sit on the floor next to the coffee table so he could see the screen.
"Figures carved into bark, piles of stone purposefully arranged, and witch-like symbols hanging from trees. Sounds that don't match any known animal. Some people have said they hear children laughing or -or someone waning." I pulled up a thread, scrolling through. "Most of it's probably bullshit, people playing into the legend. But some of it... I don't know. Some of it feels different. More genuine."
Satoru came to sit on my other side, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. He smelled like expensive cologne and the mint gum he was always chewing. "Show me the symbols."
I clicked through to a photo someone had posted -sticks hanging from trees arranged in a way that- the longer you looked you can see the outstretched form of a person. They looked sturdy and almost perfectly symmetrical.Ā
"These show up a lot in the reports. People find them near the old Kedward homestead site, or what they think is the site. No one knows if they're original to the legend or if they're just people messing around after the movie came out."
"They're creepy as hell," Satoru said appreciatively. "We should definitely film those."
We spent the next hour going through everything I'd compiled. Suguru asked practical questions about permits and equipment. Satoru kept finding the most disturbing details and getting excited about them. I felt myself relaxing into the familiar rhythm of our dynamic: me leading, them following, all of us building something together.
This was going to work. This was going to be the project that changed everything.
"Hey," Suguru said eventually, glancing at his watch. "It's almost midnight. We should probably call it."
I blinked, surprised. I'd completely lost track of time. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to keep you guys so late."
"Please," Satoru said, stretching. "Like we have anything better to do. But Suguru's right, we should get going. Early meeting tomorrow."
They both worked at the same tech company, some startup that had somehow survived long enough to go legitimate. I'd never quite understood what they did there, something with data analysis and user experience, but it paid well enough that they could afford to take time off for my projects.
We stood, and I walked them to the door. Suguru gave me a long hug, the kind that felt safe and solid. "This is going to be great," he said quietly. "I'm proud of you for putting it together."
"Thanks, Sugu." I smiled up at him, grateful.
Satoru was last, and his hug lasted a beat longer than Suguru's, his hand lingering on my back. "Get some sleep," he said. "You look exhausted."
"You know what I mean." He pulled back, and for a second, his expression was serious, almost concerned. "Take care of yourself, okay? Don't burn out before we even start."
They left together, and I heard their voices in the hallway, low and indistinct, before the elevator dinged and they were gone.
I closed the door and leaned against it, suddenly aware of how quiet my apartment was. The printouts were still scattered across the coffee table, Elly Kedward's maybe-face staring up at me from that old photograph. In the low light, her expression looked different than it had before. Less stern. More afraid.
I gathered up the papers, stacking them neatly, trying to ignore the unease creeping up my spine. This was stupid. I was being stupid. There was nothing to be afraid ofā¦not yet, anyway. We hadn't even left the city.
But as I turned off the lights and headed to bed, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted tonight. That by inviting Satoru and Suguru into this project, by asking them to follow me into those woods, I'd set something in motion that I didn't fully understand.
In the darkness of my bedroom, I pulled out my phone and scrolled back through the forum posts I'd been reading. There was one I'd bookmarked, from a user called WoodWatcher1979:
If you're thinking about going into those woods, don't. I don't care if you think the legend is fake. I don't care if you're just looking for a good story. Some places are wrong, and those woods are wrong. People go in different than they come out. If they come out at all.
Someone had replied: What do you mean, different?
WoodWatcher1979 had answered: They don't trust the same. They don't love the same. It's like something in there gets into your head and rearranges what matters. You go in with people you'd die for, and you come out wondering if you ever really knew them at all.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Then I locked my phone, plugged it in, and closed my eyes.
In a month, we'd be in those woods.
~ headers aren't mines so credit to the rightful owners!!
