So. Recap on the warehouse.

Sunshine is... feeling some type of way. For starters, she's glad Victoria was able to show up and help them navigate through the building, but Sunshine also wishes Victoria had just kept her mouth shut— she kept talking and talking. She never talks, but now she can't stop.

It's not like it was bad or— or falsified information, in fact, it was good, but Sunshine doesn't want to face the truth. It's insane. Seriously, all of it.

In addition, Sunshine's dad is a Luiseach? Or, he was and he isn't anymore..? Something crazy, which is truly the only word she can use to describe all of this bullshit. Ridiculous.

Oh, and then that dude that was chasing them, y'know, the one that attacked Nolan and Tommy? Oh, haha! He was a Groundling. No big deal, right? Just an evil servant who helps out the Markons which— Sunshine doesn't even know what that is. She can't even understand, other than it's, like, the head of everything, and then they give all their evil powers out to all these legends like the Mothman and Black-Eyed Kids.

It's. Crazy.

Sunshine kind of wonders how many Groundlings there are, and how many of those legends started out as Groundlings. Like, seriously, how many have gotten their powers? Mothman was like— 'Hey! I'm a Groundling!' and then he's suddenly Mothman. Wonderful.

And then Nolan. He's an Awaken? Like, somebody who experienced a traumatic event and that event has affected them in a way that they're now able to—? Have tiny bits of ability of paranormally-ness? She guesses? Oh, and even better, the more Nolan— or any of her family— hangs out with Sunshine, the more powers they'll develop.

What's gonna happen with Tommy? She doesn't really want him to get crazy weird or anything, because he's fine the way he is. However, he did spit up that weird black goo and was attacked by the Groundling, so, who knows. At least he's okay. He's doing just dandy, in fact.

Lastly... what's the deal with Victoria? Like, she just shows up and then she's gone? What does she mean they're not gonna trust her anymore? Sunshine doesn't know what that means, and it makes her slightly nervous. Seriously. She wishes Victoria would just...explain.

So.

Those are all of Sunshine's pondering thoughts.
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Woah. Okay, so, Sunshine just received the results back from the college. Y'know, about the stuff Uncle Tommy and Nolan had spit out? Yeah, that. And, well, everyone on YouTube is saying it has to be ectoplasm, which. Sunshine doesn't even know what that is.

Oh. Great. So, her research tells her there's no real evidence of ectoplasm. Like, there hasn't ever been any real findings on it. So... does it even exist?

No. Must not be ghost ectoplasm.

Okay, get this. The report the college sent back said that the substance was mostly composed of decomposed plant material. Excuse me. What? Huh? The hell does that even mean? They're spitting up plants? Or— or dirt stuff? Where is it coming from?

It's weird. Everything in her life is weird now, it seems.
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Sunshine sees Anna at the head of the stairs and starts recording.

She slowly ascends toward the second floor, breath heavy as she moves. The full black outfit and white-bagged head freaks her out, as it should anyone, but Sunshine just has to keep telling herself Anna won't hurt her. It's fine. Hopefully she brings good news.

"Anna?" Sunshine says, biting her lip. "Anna, are you okay?" She makes it to the second-to-last step and hesitates, unsure if she should make the full stride.

She does.

"Anna?" she tries again, voice quieter. Standing over a little girl ghost is, uh. Weird. "Is there something you— you wanted to say to me?"

No answer. She shifts forward and extends her arm, heart skipping. She's touching the bag. She's touching the bag over Anna's dead little head.

Sunshine closes her eyes, re-opens them, and tries to control herself. Hell. It's now or never, right? She bites the bullet and rips the cloth off, and a deep screech pierces her ears. Anna's head hangs back and she screams, blurring Sunshine's world into a static of red and gray.

She reels back, terrified, and drops the camera to cover her face. Quiet. Sunshine squints through her arms and sees nothing there. Anna's gone.

What. The. Hell.
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A few days after the weird Anna incident, Sunshine's watching her dogs play outside in the rain. Oscar starts digging holes— shocker— so Sunshine has to clean him up in the bathtub. Awesome.

That's not what's weird, though. What's weird is the stuff that was on Oscar's paws. It was kind of like the not-ghost ectoplasm stuff. The stuff Tommy and Nolan had spit up. The— decomposed plant material..?

Sunshine wants to search around in the yard to see if she can figure out what the hell is going on. She finishes cleaning Oscar, dries him off, and lets him roam the house. Sunshine turns her camera on and slips her green hoodie back on, twirling a rainbow-dotted umbrella in her fingers. She steps outside and props the umbrella out, droplets of rain pattering above her head.

She wanders, just basically looking for holes. And gosh, there are a lot (thanks, Oscar). She stumbles across one that looks— well, not promising. Okay. Sunshine continues on, humming to herself, trying to figure out where he could've dug. I mean, some of the holes look... not hole-ish, and it's muddy and gross and wet and... yuck. She really doesn't like the rain sometimes.

Sunshine manages to find a deeper, larger, and muddier hole after aimlessly wandering around for another few minutes. She scrunches her nose at the slick substance caked on top, reflecting the gray sky. "What is this?" Sunshine mutters, crouching down and narrowing her eyes.

Not-ghost ectoplasm? Maybe.

She sighs and reaches her hand forward, scraping through the disgusting mud with her fingers. "Ew." Sunshine forces herself not to throw up at the feeling on her hands and eyes the substance suspiciously, but uncertainty. "This... kinda looks like it could be some stuff," she says in a repulsed tone.

Sunshine resumes her clawing and feels something metal scrape across her palm. "What is this..?" She groans and pulls out a mud-caked film canister, stopping herself from slipping on her ass. Her eyes widen at the sight and she completely forgets about the decomposed plant material all over her hands. This is the jackpot.

The real question is— what's it doing in her yard? In a hole, of all places?

Guess she should talk to Kat and Tommy about it.

"All right guys," Sunshine begins as the group sits around the dining room table, "so I decided to fill them in."

Kat laughs. "I was wondering why we were here."

She whips the film canister out, smirking. "Ta-da! Look what I found."

"Ooooo," Tommy quips.

"Wait." Kat looks at it, pursing her lips. "I don't even know what that is."

"Tin."

"Is it a tin?" Kat grips the edges. "It looks like a discus, like—"

"No, it's—" Sunshine rolls her eyes.

Tommy mimics throwing a discus.

Sunshine snorts. "You didn't even do track, stop—"

"How do you know?" her mother counters.

Sunshine raises her brows at her, clearly skeptical.

"You don't know," Tommy playfully chimes in, then looks back down at the film canister. "Does it open?"

"I think it does."

"Not very well." Tommy helps pull the lid off and they all stare at the reels inside.

"Woah," Kat says.

"I found this in the backyard." Sunshine looks at them.

"Wait. Our backyard?"

She makes an 'obviously!' face. Tommy glances at her, giggling.

"No, really?" Silence. "Are you serious?"

"Did you use, like, a treasure map or something?" Tommy smirks.

Sunshine shrugs. "No. It was in uh, the ground."

"That's cool!" Kat exclaims.

Tommy grins. "Do you know what's on it?"

"Home movies," Kat says excitedly.

Sunshine makes a face.

"What?"

"I hope it's not home movies, that would be boring."

"What do you want it to be?"

Sunshine huffs. "I don't know, somethin' cool."

"Oh. Can't you get it developed?"

"How..?"

"I don't know."

Tommy looks up at her mother. "Can't they do the, uh— like, there's a company you can send stuff like eight millimeter stuff away to and get it transferred, can't you?"

Kat shrugs. "I don't know. Probably."

"We should go online."

Her mother gasps. "Online! We can get things online."

"Everything is online."

"I wanna know what it is." Kat smiles like a little girl opening a Christmas present. She laughs. "Do you think it's really expensive, though? I don't wanna pay a lot of money."

Tommy shrugs. "I don't— it can't be that expensive."

"We can do a kickstarter for it!"

Kat and Tommy laugh. Sunshine rolls her eyes and drops the lid, looking at the camera with a small smirk. "All right, we're gonna go look this up."

Tommy inspects the film. "I don't see anything." He lifts the rod out and grits his teeth anxiously. "I don't wanna break it." Threads of film curl out from the bottom, reflecting a myriad of colors. He extends it and lifts it to the light. "It's white."

Kat snorts.

"It's white," Sunshine echoes.

"Good story." Kat laughs.

"Now, we need to get that developed," Tommy nods.

Sunshine eyes the camera again. "We're gonna go get it developed, now that they're all up to speed," she sarcastically says.

Tommy raises his brows. "Let's see if you get Christmas presents."

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So. The film. Uh.

Well. That's an interesting story. To be honest, they'd never actually thought it would be anything about the house, but lo and behold, they were wrong. After getting the footage back, it... well. They'd watched it first, of course, and had been absolutely horrified with the results.

Guess what? It has a lot to do with the cult.

The film starts out with an adolescent girl dressed in all black with a white cloth mask— Anna— standing somewhere in the backyard, bushes swaying behind her.

A man walks in from the side, wearing a black suit and the same white cloth over his head. He pats Anna's head like she's a pet and stands next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pressing her close. This is what that old photo looks like—the one of the mystery ghosts.

This is them.

Anna tightly hugs the man— her dad?— but he retreats out of the film and leaves her standing alone. Whoever is filming stands close to Anna, and suddenly everything is dark. It peers back in on Anna and her father, except the night sky twinkles above them now.

Father pats Anna's head again and motions for someone to give him something. Anna rips the bag off of her head and runs out of the screen.

Oh. Oh, yeah— Victoria. She drags Anna back into the film to stand by Father, and she's wearing the exact same tan trenchcoat she always does. Victoria orders Anna to crouch down, which she does, and gives the cloth back to Father.

Father pulls the bag over Anna's head and Victoria hands him a thick, shining blade. Father moves forward, holds Anna's head back, and.... well.

It's the sacrifice.

Not only is Father slicing Anna's throat shocking, but so is the fact that Victoria was involved. She's right— they don't trust her anymore. How can they, after...?

Sunshine.... she's just glad she didn't turn out like Anna.
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Sunshine's been on YouTube for a year.

Everyone's fine and Uncle Tommy's still living with them, as a... protector..? Sunshine thinks that maybe she should just— stop. Stop with the videos, stop with YouTube, stop with everything.

Of course, she's still going to continue her BEK film, since y'know, they raised $10k dollars for it, and she promised it, but... everything else is starting to get a little ridiculous. A little much for Sunshine, which is saying a lot.

She knows her fans won't be happy, but what can she do? Should she find Victoria? Uncover Nolan's secrets? Should she do the videos, should she stop the videos? Should she try to uncover more about Anna's past even though they just saw what happened?

She doesn't know. Sunshine needs time to think.

The one year thing is a brighter note. Happy one year— maybe last year— anniversary. It's been awesome and crazy and... well, she appreciates everyone, especially all of her fans.

Now she just... needs to take a small break, is all. Maybe she'll continue, maybe she won't.

Above all else, Sunshine needs to recover.

wow, ok, part 4 is over! now on to PART 5! thanks for anyone who's reading, i appreciate everything!! i'm going to start delving deeper into everyone's pasts and also include some scenes that weren't in the videos— at least, this is the plan for the next five seasons.

it's been half a year and we're halfway there. let's see where this goes!