Day 659

The video footage was shaky but fairly useful still. It was recovered by the police alongside the remains of three individuals who seemed to be searching for ghosts in the fields by the river and found more than they bargained for.

The footage starts off with them climbing over a farmer's fence and discussing their plans. They were following rumours of disappearances in the local area, countless human bones found washed downstream. Some were hundreds of years old and others were still bloodied and fresh. The group suspected some kind of escaped zoo animal, a wolf or panther - maybe even a whole group of them.

As the camera panned across the fields little flickers of movement darted about. At times the flickers looked almost like children running about and playing together. The trio didn't seem to notice them or perhaps couldn't see them and continued to chatter about the alleged sightings around the area that eerily matched the pallid figures that ran in front and around them.

According to their "sources" locals had seen children wearing brown rags running about, covered in filth and in some cases blood. Most of them were missing fingers, toes or whole limbs, the ends mangled and trailing behind them like wet streamers. They never stuck around for long, seeming to duck into the long grass and vanish entirely. The police had been called to these fields countless times before in search of the brutally wounded children but never found much more then old, old bones.

These "investigators" drew close to the river and to what looked to be a large iron bridge with a grate blocking off the river beneath. As they stood a stone's throw from the river countless tiny arms reached out of the tall grass on either side, frantically grasping for the trio and muttering in their high pitched little voices. Some words could be made out on the tape, in between the trio's exclamations of shock as they finally saw what had been following them for the length of the video. More like short phrases, later found to be terminology associated with industrial era mills.

This was confirmed by the three individuals, examining the bridge from a safe space of shorter grass, all trying to cram close together to avoid the little clutching hands. They thought it was definitely victorian at least, possibly older and somehow very well preserved. The little voices thanked them, said they worked extra hard to keep the place in "working order".

This made the trio drop their guard. Fatally. They stepped closer at the little voices invitation, making a move towards the bridge. The camera suddenly shook and the screams began as the little arms took hold of them and began to pull them towards the grating. With a jolt the camera was dropped and the angle just about showed their horrified faces being forced through iron bars far too narrow for them until their bones just shattered with sickeningly wet crunches.

The last few hours of footage were of a filthy child with a partially caved in head picking up the camera in a bloodied three-fingered hand and walking with the lens pointed at its smiling face towards the farmer's fence where the trio had originally entered. It placed the camera gently on the sty and skipped away, ducking into the long grass to run alongside others similar to it.