Ann Nurse cosplay by me :D

Nina and Eyeless Jack!!! <33

Basically the title.

I did not put that mich effort tbh, just wanted to draw for a couple of hours and that's it.

Drew Jeff for some reason, felt appropriate for October. I'm not totally in the creepy pasta but I wanted to try something different.

I'm not quite sure if this is something to be posted on this subreddit, but I'm looking for a horror story I read on the internet a few years back. It was in multiple parts, about a creature that haunts the dreams of people until they off themselves, and then haunt the dreams of the first person to find the body and then repeat. I guess kind of like the Smile movie thing? I dunno I can't find it and it's driving me freaking crazy.

THE THING IN THE WOODS

By Garry E. McMillan

Part One: The Old Mercer Place

My father had three rules about the woods behind our house.

Never cross the creek after sundown.

Never follow a voice you couldn't put a face to.

And no matter how familiar that voice sounded, never answer it.

I thought the old bastard was crazy. Now I'd give anything to hear him say those words again.

My name's Elias Mercer, but anyone who knows me calls me Eli. I'm thirty-nine. I'd stayed away from that house for twenty years, long enough to convince myself the rules were just one more way for Dad to control me. He had plenty of those. No visiting friends after dark, no camping, no wandering the logging roads. If I broke one, he'd stand in the doorway and wait until I couldn't bear the silence anymore.

Dad died of a heart attack on Tuesday, October 6, 2026. We buried him three days later outside Langley, Arkansas. By sundown that Friday, I was back at his farmhouse with my nine-year-old daughter, June, planning to pack whatever mattered and put the property up for sale.

The house stood on private land surrounded by the Ouachita National Forest. A narrow creek separated the backyard from a stand of timber so thick you could hardly see daylight between the trunks. Dad cleared our side every spring, but beyond the water the ferns stayed green even during a drought.

As a boy, I'd sometimes heard footsteps over there. They always stopped when I did.

In summer, the cicadas shrieked until the air seemed to vibrate. But every so often the noise would end all at once. The dog would creep under the porch, and I'd find myself watching that bank for movement. Nothing came out. That was almost worse.

When I asked Dad why we couldn't cross, he pointed to the water. "That creek ain't there to keep you from getting lost, Eli. It's there to remind you where you belong."

That was Harlan Mercer. A man who could make a conversation feel like punishment.

We'd had our last real argument the day I left home. Dad said I'd come crawling back when the world taught me some sense. I said a few things I haven't forgiven myself for, though at the time I meant every word. We spoke on the phone afterward, on birthdays and at Christmas, but neither of us ever brought up that day. When I found out he was dead, the first thing I felt was anger that we'd left so much unsaid.

• • •

The last mile of the driveway was little more than ruts and blackberry vines. June held her stuffed rabbit, Buttons, by his one good ear and watched the pines go past.

"Did Grandpa really live out here alone?"

"Most of the time."

"Wasn't he lonely?"

I used to think he preferred it. Now I wasn't sure.

"I reckon he got used to it."

She pressed against her seat belt. "Then who's that man?"

I eased off the gas. "What man?"

"Behind the trees. He was standing sideways."

I saw nothing but trunks and tangled brush. "Probably a hunter."

"He wasn't holding a gun."

"A deer, then."

She gave me a look. "I know what a deer looks like, Daddy."

She watched the trees until the house appeared.

A bend in the driveway followed the creek for a few hundred yards. I recognized a split boulder beside the water where Dad once caught me trying to build a bridge from fallen boards. He'd grabbed me so hard by the collar that the seam tore. I remembered the bruises more clearly than I remembered him carrying those boards away in the rain.

Inside, the place smelled of damp wood and stale tobacco. Dad had saved everything: bent nails in coffee cans, bills from the nineties, my childhood baseball glove. The webbing had been repaired with the heavy thread he used on his work gloves. I'd never known he'd bothered.

June slipped her hand inside. "Did Grandpa teach you to catch?"

"He tried."

"Like you taught me to ride my bike? You let go too soon."

"I ran right behind you all the way to the mailbox. You just didn't look back."

"Because I was riding," she said, as though that settled it.

I still had a photograph from that day on my phone. June had one foot off the pedal and both arms flung wide, certain she was about to crash. My hand was inches from the seat. I hadn't let her see the picture yet; she liked telling everyone she had done the whole thing herself. I liked letting her.

On the mantel she found a photograph of a young woman with her arm around a little boy.

"That's you. Who's she?"

"Your grandma. Margaret."

"Why didn't I meet her?"

"She died when I was eight."

Dad said my mother had gotten sick while I was staying with an aunt. He never let me ask much more than that.

In the picture, her hand rested on my shoulder. I couldn't recall the weight of it. I did remember her voice, though. She used to sing while washing dishes and, whenever I got into trouble, smooth my hair and say, "Lord have mercy, Elias, what am I gonna do with you?"

I remembered the sound of singing. Not one note of the song.

My memories of my mother were hazier than those of Dad. I knew that was normal. Children forget faces, smells, whole years. But I could remember the tiny scar on her thumb and the way she scraped batter from a bowl for me to eat. It bothered me that the tune had vanished while those useless details remained. I stood there looking at her photograph until June tugged my sleeve and asked whether we could have supper.

• • •

We ate canned soup at the kitchen table because the dining room felt colder than the rest of the house. June wanted to know whether Grandpa had liked children. I told her he'd loved me, just wasn't good at saying so. The lie came easily. I hated myself a little for it afterward.

June fell asleep upstairs around eight. I made coffee and opened Dad's desk. Beneath a stack of property records lay a cracked leather notebook, its pages covered in small, uneven handwriting.

March 12, 2004. Three knocks on the north wall. Nothing outside.

April 6. Tracks along the far bank again. Too far apart to be a man's.

May 19, 2018. Heard Margaret calling from the lower pasture. Did not answer.

My mother had been gone since 1995.

A later entry had been pressed so hard into the paper that the letters scored the page.

It knows his name now.

Below it: God forgive me, I answered.

Three taps sounded at the living room window.

The porch light reached only to the grass beyond the glass. Dad had cut down every tree close enough for a branch to touch the house.

I heard a scrape, as though somebody had dragged the heel of a boot across the boards outside. But there was no porch below that window. Just the drop to the yard and a clear stretch of ground before the creek. For a moment, I couldn't make myself look up from the notebook.

"Eli?"

I knew the voice before the second word.

"Eli, boy. Come out here a minute."

My father, right down to the irritation in his Arkansas drawl.

Leaves shifted near the pines. A pale hand rested against a trunk well above a man's head. I counted six fingers before it disappeared.

"Son, you reckon you could come give your old man a hand?"

I wanted to think one of his old lumber-mill friends was playing some rotten joke. Then it said, "Don't you turn your back on me, boy."

Those were the last words Dad had shouted when I left home more than twenty years earlier.

"Dad?"

The word was out before I remembered his rule.

Every insect fell silent. Beyond the creek, something let out a long, wavering breath, like a man trying not to laugh.

Upstairs, June began to cry.

• • •

I found her sitting upright, quilt bunched beneath her chin. I sat beside her until she stopped shaking. Then, without thinking, I tapped her shoulder three times.

Three taps meant I love you. We'd done it every night since she was four. She always tapped back.

It began when June was little and afraid of thunderstorms. I used to sit on the edge of her bed, trying not to show that I had no idea how to make thunder less frightening. Somehow we settled on the taps. We'd use them in crowded stores, at school drop-off, anywhere one of us needed to know the other was there. I'd forgotten plenty of things about those five years. That wasn't one of them.

This time she moved away.

"What's that for?"

"Our secret, June Bug."

She frowned. "What secret?"

I tapped again. She watched my fingers, puzzled.

"You never did that before."

I nearly argued. I could have named a hundred nights when she'd answered my taps, even with her eyes closed.

Outside, my dead father called for me again.

This time he was laughing.

Part Two: What the Creek Kept

I stayed beside June until she slept. Outside, Dad's voice called through the trees, sometimes angry, sometimes frightened. Once it coughed. That smoker's cough used to wake me every morning when I was a boy.

It was the cough that came closest to making me answer again.

He'd given up cigarettes twice in my childhood. Both attempts lasted a week. I used to count the days and wait for him to get angry enough to start again. Hearing that cough beyond the creek, I found myself doing the same thing I did at twelve: holding perfectly still until I could tell what kind of mood he was in.

Downstairs, I turned off the living room lamp. The window reflected my face over the porch light and the first row of trees. Beyond the creek, the dark looked solid.

I opened the notebook again.

The earliest entries were from October 1995, the year Mom supposedly died.

October 14. Margaret heard Eli crying across the creek. Boy was upstairs asleep. I checked.

October 16. It cried again. She answered before I could stop her. Eli asked why she quit singing at the sink. She hadn't quit. He couldn't remember the song.

I remembered my mother singing. Not the tune.

I tried to force it back. Hymn? Lullaby? Something from the radio? All I could remember was the clink of dishes and my own bare feet on the kitchen floor. If Dad's entry was true, then I'd been unable to remember the song since the very week it disappeared from our house.

Four pages later:

October 23. Margaret's gone.

Heard the boy calling beyond the creek. Real Eli was asleep beside me on the couch. She kept saying our baby was hurt.

I followed her to the water. Saw something tall and pale bent over behind the trees. It spoke. Margaret answered, then crossed.

Heard her scream once. Never found her.

Dad had told me she'd died in a hospital while I stayed with my aunt. I could remember my aunt holding my hand outside a church, but not a casket or a graveside. The longer I tried to picture them, the less certain I felt they'd ever been there.

I remembered being angry with Dad for not letting me see her one last time. He'd told me she'd already been buried. I screamed at him until he raised his hand, then put it down without touching me. For years that was the part of the story I'd carried around: a frightened little boy sure his father was ashamed to see him cry. Now I wondered what Dad had heard from the woods while I was screaming inside the house.

October 27. Told Eli his mama passed away. He keeps running to the window whenever it calls her. Better he thinks she's dead.

There was a small sound behind me.

Three taps from the hallway wall.

"Son?" Dad said from the kitchen. "I can't find the light."

The kitchen doorway was empty. I knew every loose board between the hall and the sink, yet I hadn't heard anything move across them.

"Just give me a hand, Eli."

I wanted to turn on every light in the house. Instead, I gripped the notebook so hard the cover bent.

The kitchen smelled faintly of tobacco, warm and stale, as if Dad had just finished smoking at the sink. I knew the shape of that room in the dark: the metal edge of the counter, the scar in the floor where he dropped an axe head, the cupboard door that never closed all the way. I couldn't see anybody in it. That didn't make the voice any farther away.

When I didn't answer, the faint smell of cigarettes faded. The voice went with it. I never heard footsteps leave.

I should have taken June and gone then. But there was one more entry I couldn't make myself leave unread.

If I'd been alone, I might have stayed there until morning reading every page. I wanted proof that Dad hadn't lied to me because I was an inconvenience. I wanted to know why a man who could face down anybody in town had spent his life afraid of a few acres of woods.

June 4, 2018. Eli asked why I never took him fishing. We went every Saturday when he was small. His green tackle box is in the shed. I answered Margaret three nights ago.

I'd noticed the tackle box earlier that day. My name was scratched into the lid. I had no memory of holding a fishing pole beside my father.

Across the bottom margin, Dad had written:

The voices get farther than the body. The tracks never come across the water.

And beneath that:

Sometimes I know it ain't her. Sometimes I answer anyway.

Something giggled upstairs.

June.

Then I heard her say, "Okay, Daddy."

The back door opened.

• • •

June stood barefoot on the porch in her pink pajamas, Buttons dangling from one hand. She turned when I called her name.

"You said you were going to show me something."

"I didn't. Get inside."

I pulled her through the doorway and locked it. She clutched her rabbit to her chest, and for a horrible second I couldn't remember what she called him. I'd stitched his ear back on twice. I'd bought him for her. But the name was gone.

"What's your rabbit's name?" I asked.

"Buttons." She looked hurt. "Daddy, you know that."

Once she'd said it, the name sounded familiar. Before that, nothing.

I tried to remember the first time she'd carried Buttons out of the store, when she still called every stuffed animal a baby. The scene came back clear enough. His name didn't. That missing word frightened me more than the shape I'd seen among the pines, because I could feel its exact size inside my mind.

June had answered a voice pretending to be me, and I was the one who'd forgotten.

I crouched in front of her. "Something's out there using our voices. Whatever you hear after dark, don't answer it. Not even if it sounds like me."

"Then how do I know it's really you?"

Her question wasn't the question of someone who believed in monsters. It was what any child would ask after a parent told her not to trust his voice. I'd spent her whole life teaching her to come when I called. Now I was telling her that habit could get her killed.

She was nine. I had no answer that would make a nine-year-old feel safe.

She slipped her hand into mine. "Two squeezes," she said. "If it's really you, you can squeeze my hand twice."

I squeezed back. "All right. Two."

A voice came from outside.

"June Bug?"

My voice. The rasp I get when I'm tired, the little upward turn I put on her name.

"Come on, baby. Daddy's right here."

June squeezed my hand twice.

Beyond the creek, something leaned against a pine. It looked almost human until it raised its head. Higher. Still higher. Its shoulder stayed in place while its narrow face emerged above the lowest branches.

One hand curled around the trunk. The fingers bent in places fingers shouldn't.

"June?"

The voice came a fraction before its mouth moved, like a performer missing a cue.

Its body didn't move with any breath. Nothing in the silhouette suggested lungs. For a second, though, it seemed to study my stance. One shoulder dropped. Its head turned at the same angle as mine. I could almost believe it was looking into a mirror and correcting itself.

"Daddy's right here."

Then it laughed with my laugh, that short, embarrassed chuckle I make when a joke falls flat. It held the sound a little too long.

I understood, suddenly, that it wasn't laughing at us.

It was practicing.

• • •

I got June inside and shut the curtain. She kept hold of my hand.

"His face didn't fit," she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"When he stopped, it kept moving."

I took the keys, Dad's notebook, and nothing else. The truck was twenty feet from the front porch.

I carried June across the gravel. As I reached the passenger door, she tightened her grip around my collar.

Twice.

Someone stood in her upstairs window.

A girl in pink pajamas, holding a rabbit with one torn ear. She lifted a hand and waved.

"Daddy? Why'd you leave me?"

The voice was June's. The figure pressed its cheek against the glass. Its skin lagged behind the movement, then settled into place as though pulled by invisible fingers.

The real June shook against me. She couldn't have made that face at the window even if she'd tried. The girl upstairs was smiling, but the muscles around her eyes hadn't been told. I caught myself watching her instead of moving, as if one more second would explain what I was seeing.

It raised one hand and tapped the pane three times.

The secret my daughter had forgotten.

June hid her face against me. I buckled her into the passenger seat, scrambled behind the wheel, and started the engine. I reversed so hard that gravel struck the porch steps.

Three knocks came from the rear window.

In the mirror, something pale crouched in the truck bed. Its fingers hooked over the roof without leaving marks in the dust.

I'd have sworn I felt the suspension dip, though the truck never changed its pitch. Dad's notebook flashed through my mind: no tracks across the water. Whatever sat behind us was a picture made with the same cruel patience as the voices. Knowing it couldn't be solid did nothing for the cold spreading through my chest.

"Lord have mercy, Elias," my mother's voice said behind my head. "What am I gonna do with you?"

June reached for my hand. Two squeezes.

I kept driving.

In the dark windshield, faintly lit by the dashboard, my reflection began to smile.

I wasn't smiling.

Part Three: The Last Answer

The smile stayed in the windshield when I turned back toward the road.

"Daddy!"

A fallen pine limb lay across the next bend. I swerved, clipping it with the passenger-side mirror. The truck skidded sideways in the gravel and stopped with a shudder.

I checked June. The seat belt had caught her shoulder, but she was all right. Buttons lay beneath her feet.

She was trying not to cry. She had that look she gets at the doctor's office, brave until somebody asks whether she's frightened. I wanted to take her home and put on the cartoon she'd been watching before we drove to Langley. I wanted a problem I knew how to fix.

I tried to drive. Something scraped against the front wheel. A fork of the branch had jammed beneath the fender, and each turn of the steering wheel ground it deeper.

Three knocks came from behind my head.

"You're going the wrong way, boy," Dad's voice said. "You'll get that little girl killed."

I found a flashlight in the glove compartment.

"I'm clearing the tire," I told June. "Lock the doors. Don't open them for a voice. Not even mine. I'll come back and squeeze your hand twice."

"What if you fall?"

"I'll get up. Stay here."

She caught my fingers before I got out and squeezed twice.

I went around the hood, set the flashlight where it shone on the wheel, and crouched beside the tire. The pine limb had wedged against it. I hooked both hands under it and pulled. The bark tore at my palms before the branch snapped free.

The cold gravel soaked through the knees of my jeans. A smell of split pine rose from beneath the bumper. I remember both things because I was trying so hard to pay attention to ordinary details. I thought if I could hold on to the tire, the branch, the beam of my flashlight, nothing else could get inside my head.

Behind me, a door latch clicked.

I turned. My flashlight rolled off the hood and struck the gravel.

From somewhere down the slope, my own voice shouted, "June! Help me! I fell!"

The passenger door stood open.

June was gone.

For one second, I stood there listening to the empty cab. The radio was still on low, some late-night preacher talking about salvation. I had told June to keep the doors locked. She must have heard me crying for help and forgotten every warning I'd given her. Or remembered them and opened the door anyway, because I'm her father.

• • •

Her bare footprints led through a break in the brush toward the creek. I ran after them, pushing past briers, hearing my own voice farther ahead.

"Honey, I'm hurt. Come down here."

The creek was only a strip of moonlit water when I reached it.

June stood on our bank, clutching Buttons. Across from her, a man in my jacket crouched among the roots. One leg appeared bent beneath him. He had his face buried in his hands.

The bank was slick clay, and the far side rose abruptly beneath the trees. I remembered Dad hauling me backward from those same stones when I was small. He'd been furious. I thought then that he cared more about the rules than whether I was hurt. Standing there with June inches from the water, I understood the look he'd had on his face.

The man lifted his head. He was wearing my face, but the fear arrived late in his eyes, like he'd remembered to put it there only after raising them.

"You have to help me," he told her.

June moved one foot onto a stone at the edge.

"June," I said.

She turned. Relief crossed her face until the other me spoke.

"He's not your daddy. You know what I told you about the bicycle?"

He looked at me and smiled with my mouth.

"I ran right behind you all the way to the mailbox. You just didn't look back."

My own words from earlier that afternoon.

She hesitated. There were two men with her father's face, and one of them was using a memory she knew belonged to us.

June clutched her rabbit so tightly its loose ear twisted around her fist. She wanted to believe me. I could see it. But I had her father's voice, and so did the shape across the creek. Her little signal was the one piece of proof it hadn't stolen yet. I was too far away to use it.

I held out my hand. "I can squeeze twice. You don't have to listen to either voice. Just reach for me."

The thing across the water extended its hand, too.

Then it started humming.

I recognized the tune the way you recognize a place you haven't seen since childhood. My mother used to sing it at the kitchen sink. The notes came back only as the creature sang them, and even then I couldn't have repeated them myself.

The imitation of my face loosened. The skin slipped as if it had been hung over something narrower.

Beneath it was my mother.

She did not rush toward me. She stood among the roots as if she were waiting for me to come home from school. That quiet patience almost worked. I was eight again, aching to bury my face in the front of her dress. I could hear her singing the notes I'd spent thirty-one years trying to remember.

Blue dress. Dark hair. The same face in the photograph on Dad's mantel. She hadn't aged a day since 1995.

"Elias," she whispered. "I heard you crying. I thought my baby needed me."

Behind her, something unfolded among the trees. A long pale limb bent around a pine. Another followed, far above where a person's shoulder should have been. I saw a narrow head turn without the rest of its body moving.

The woman held out her hand to me.

"Answer me, sweetheart. Let me know you're there."

The creek murmured over stones. June glanced from the woman to me. Her bare foot slid on the moss. She dropped to one knee, caught a root on the opposite bank, and clung there above the water.

I lunged but couldn't reach her. The figure wearing my mother's face bent forward. Behind it, six pale fingers tightened around the tree.

Then I remembered what happened when I'd answered at the window.

The footsteps stopped. The woods went silent. The thing had listened so closely that for an instant it stopped pretending to be my father.

I could make it listen again.

When it listened, it stopped reaching. I only needed a second.

I knew what it would cost. I couldn't choose which memory June would lose. I couldn't know whether she'd still recognize me when it finished.

She was pulling on the root. Another few inches and she'd be across.

"I'm here," I said to the woman.

The humming stopped.

I knew that if June survived, I'd have to tell her what I'd done. She might never believe me. She might wake up unable to remember our mornings together, or her birthday, or my face. There was no way to ask that thing for mercy; it had learned the sound of mercy only so it could speak in my mother's voice.

Across the creek, my mother's borrowed face went blank. The towering figure leaned toward me, its pale head tilting as though catching a sound no one else could hear.

June's hand slipped from the root. I seized the back of her pajama shirt and dragged her into my arms.

For an instant the entire forest seemed to hold its breath. Then water and insects and June's sobs rushed back into the world.

My father's voice rose from the far bank.

"You always were a damn fool, boy."

I ran without answering.

• • •

When we reached the truck, June touched my cheek.

She had mud smeared up one shin and blood on her knee from the stones. I checked the cut, desperate to have something practical to do. It was shallow. She watched me clean it with the damp corner of my sleeve as if she were trying to decide which questions were safe to ask.

"You were there when I learned to ride my bike, weren't you?"

"Yeah, baby."

"I remember the mailbox." She swallowed. "And falling off the first time. But when I try to remember you running behind me, there's nobody there."

A few hours earlier she'd teased me for letting go too soon. Now she could remember the ride, the scraped knee, the mailbox. Just not her father keeping pace with her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't you ever apologize for that."

I buckled her in. She squeezed my hand twice, and I squeezed back.

The truck started. I drove until there were streetlights, gas stations, and other people who had no idea what lived in the forest north of Langley.

We found a motel in Hot Springs after one in the morning. June fell asleep with Buttons beneath her chin. His torn ear had come loose again, so I used the motel sewing kit to stitch it back on.

Outside the motel window, cars passed through pools of orange streetlight. Somebody laughed in the parking lot. I could hear a vending machine rattling down the hall. Such stupid, ordinary sounds, and I had never been so grateful for them. June didn't ask whether the thing could follow us there. Neither did I.

When I finished, I kissed her forehead and tapped her shoulder three times.

"What's that mean?" she asked sleepily.

"I love you."

She tapped me back.

"Do it tomorrow, too."

"I will."

• • •

It's Thursday, October 15, as I'm writing this. Six days since we buried Dad.

I've kept his notebook. I found a letter folded between the last two pages, addressed to me. Most of it was an apology he should have said while he was alive. There was one sentence I couldn't stop reading:

I kept you away because I was afraid of losing you, and I lost you anyway.

Below it he'd written, I love you, son. I should have told you more often.

He couldn't say those words to me while he was alive. I wish I knew whether it was stubbornness or fear that stopped him. I suppose I'll never know.

The notebook had one last surprise.

I'd seen the entry already:

March 12, 2004. Three knocks on the north wall. Nothing outside.

On the back of that page, beneath a fold, Dad had written:

March 13. Tapped Eli's shoulder at breakfast. Three taps, like when he was little. He asked why I was doing it. I answered Margaret Tuesday night. It took that from him, too.

I'd always thought June and I invented our little ritual together. I don't remember my father tapping my shoulder even once.

But somewhere along the way, my hands remembered what I couldn't.

Tonight June asked me to tell her about learning to ride without training wheels. She knows what happened. She's heard the story enough to repeat every detail, right down to the mailbox.

She still can't remember me running behind her.

Somewhere beyond that creek, something can.

The story of bun bun aka “Are all bunnies always prey?” Has lowkey gotten a lot of views and comments and I’m so grateful that my story could really reach the people who would enjoy it //kawaiibbunbun4ever

Jimothy Dyck was working overtime at the office – again. He was covering for Jerry, who hadn’t been seen since Monday. The birthday card for Linda that Jimothy left on Jerry’s desk was still lying there, unsigned.

“Where the hell is Jerry?” Jimothy complained to his boss, Cheryl. “He still owes me five dollars for Linda’s gift.”

“He never called in,” Cheryl replied without looking up from her computer.

“He’s probably dead,” Jimothy concluded. “Got his face eaten off by a zombie.”

“We don’t know that,” Cheryl replied matter-of-factly.

Jimothy looked awkwardly at Cheryl, trying to think of an excuse to go home early.

“Did you sign the card?” Cheryl finally asked.

Jimothy sighed, pushed up his dark-rimmed glasses, held together with a strip of white tape, and went back to his cubicle. On the way there, he stopped at Jerry’s desk and stole his stapler.

Jerry’s job was to make the PowerPoint slides for Jimothy’s quarterly sales report. Now it was Jimothy’s problem – and he couldn’t get the damn video to play.

Jimothy was just about ready to lose it, so he reached out to the IT department for help.

A few minutes later, Suzi from IT shuffled into Jimothy’s office with an assault rifle slung over her shoulder.

The government’s solution to the zombie apocalypse was to arm the citizenry with more guns, thinking the problem would eventually go away.

Suzi leaned the rifle against Jimothy’s desk and greeted him with a nervous smile.

“Hey, Jimothy.”

Suzi’s smile lingered as she ran a hand through her long blonde hair.

“Hey, Suzi,” Jimothy mumbled, “I can’t get this video to play.”

“Hmmm. Lemme see.”

Suzi leaned in close. She opened the video of @_hernameismswhiskers the cat hanging from a tree. The caption read Hang in there!

“Ha!” Suzi giggled, holding Jimothy’s arm. Her hand felt cold and clammy against his skin. “Did you watch Mystery Cat last night?”

“Yes!” Jimothy grinned. He loved the hit television series, Mystery Cat, starring @_hernameismswhiskers as the crime-solving cat, Kitty Holmes, and her partner, Detective Rachel “Purronica” Miau, played by Bexley Zarakaiza.

“@_hernameismswhiskers is totally a zombie!” Jimothy claimed. “The studio never even replaced her!”

“I know, right!?!” Suzi laughed out loud, leaning in closer. “They’re not even trying to hide it!”

“That’s Hollywood – drag out a show until it’s way past dead.”

Suzi blushed and made eyes at Jimothy.

“What are you doing after work?” she asked, smiling coyly. “We should grab a bite together.”

That’s when Jimothy noticed the bite mark under Suzi’s arm. The flesh around Suzi’s wound was already starting to rot. Within hours, Suzi would become deathly ill with the zombie fever.

Jimothy glanced up. Suzi was licking her lips at him, and not in a sexy way. Her wanting eyes hungered for a hunk of Jimothy’s man-meat.

“Suzi – you’re infected!” Jimothy exclaimed, loud enough for the entire office to hear.

Suzi quickly stood up and yanked her sleeve down. “No, I’m not!”

The next few moments in the office descended into pandemonium as news of Suzi’s infection spread.

Ted from Accounting spilled hot coffee on his shirt as he reached for his revolver.

Sherry from Public Relations shrieked, “It’s not an outbreak! It’s an unexpected health challenge!”

Devin took one look at the clock and said, “Fuck this!”

He sprinted down the stairs, out the door, and around the corner where he ran headfirst into a zombie horde.

The entire office watched from the third floor as Devin got his face eaten off by zombies.

It was another goddamn fucking Wednesday at the office.

“Not bad,” Jimothy thought as he eyed Devin’s new office chair.

It was a minute past midnight and the moon outside the castle was deliciously bright and round. I stood admiring it at the window, the fire crackling in the hearth behind me, shadows dancing along the flagstones. Though none were cast at my own feet.

Beyond the castle, the black cliffs crumbled away into a deep ravine, where dark trees bundled together like matchsticks, and a gushing river swelled between the rocks like a silverbacked serpent. The wind whistled through the broken casement of the window, chilling the air and threatening to extinguish the fire.

There was a whisper of movement on my left and one of the sisters appeared beside me, bowing her head. Her dress was a deep red, the same colour as her eyes.

“It’s a pleasant night,” I mused, raising the collar of my black coat against the chill as the moonlight dusted the windows. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders as she raised her head.

“Yes Master,” she said in a subdued tone. “However, I fear I shall ruin it with my tidings.”

I turned to her fully, examining the grave expression on her face. Her lips were pinched. “Why is that? What tidings do you bring?”

Her red eyes glowed in the firelight. A long shadow was drawn across her features. “A peasant house is in the midst of construction beside the castle.”

I stared at her for a moment. The fire crackled sharply. “A… peasant house?” I finally repeated, scoffing at her words. Surely she was mistaken. The area around my castle was a perfectly barren wasteland; the peasants in the settlements knew better than to encroach on my land without permission, never mind erect a building on my grounds. “What is this trickery?”

“No trickery, Master. Come see for yourself.”

The vampire sister turned and strode towards the opposite side of the tower, her long red gown trailing behind her like a pair of folded wings. Curious, I followed her, our footsteps silent on the stone floor. I assumed I had misunderstood her, for nobody would be foolish enough to even approach my castle. Unless they were naive or ignorant of my nature.

But as we paused by the window, and she lifted a hand to point outside, I stood aghast at what I saw. A short distance away from the front gates of my castle, visible through the fog, there was indeed a house being built. Beneath the cold glow of the moon, I saw piles of stone and wood, the loose structure of rafters and foundations already laid. What sort of fool would dare build a house so close to my castle? Who would dare to become my neighbour without first consulting the master of this tower?

I was furious and intrigued at the same time. Only the dumbest, and perhaps bravest, of men would do such a thing. And I found myself feeling very much inclined to meet him.

“The house seems deserted now,” the vampire sister observed, resting her hand against her cheek. “Perhaps they have given up?”

“Or perhaps they only build during the day, knowing the weakness the sunlight inflicts upon us creatures of the night,” I said with a harrumph.

“You are wise, Master,” she said. “Shall I take my sisters over there and tear it down? It is a stain upon your grand castle.”

I pondered her offer. “No. I should like to meet the fool first,” I decided, extending my fangs below my lips. “Perhaps he would see fit to grace my castle with his… delicious presence.”

The sister covered her mouth with a low chuckle. “I understand, Master. You would see it fit to make a meal of him?”

I nodded. “Leave the peasant house for now,” I told her, turning away from the window with a flourish of my coat. “I wish to see how far he dares to go.”

The following night, as I rose from my coffin at the heart of midnight, my first thought was of the house being built by the castle. Had more progress been made, or had the owner seen the measure of his own foolishness and deserted? It would be a shame if he had fled before a meal could be made of him.

It had been a while since I had anything to amuse me on these long nights, just as long as it had been since fresh blood had passed these lips. The peasants in the surrounding settlements had grown wise to my nature and seen fit to ward their houses, stringing garlic and crosses upon the threshold. I was only able to feed when an unwitting traveller passed by, or a fool decided to build a house directly beside my castle.

The tower was quiet as I made my way to the top, winding through the warren of rooms and climbing the narrow, crumbling stairways. The sisters were nowhere to be seen; perhaps frolicking outside in the moonlight as they so often did. I reached the highest point of the castle and strode to the window that overlooked the barren grounds. From this height, I could even glimpse the closest settlement in the far distance; a small cluster of thatched houses and burning torches that lit the foggy hills like burning eyes.

But my concern was much closer. Lowering my gaze to the land right outside the gates, I saw that the house had changed. There were more walls than yesterday, denser foundations, the first signs of carpentry. The fool really had continued building the house. Had he not been warned of the dark Count that occupied the castle? Had he not heard the rumours of the blood-feasting creatures that stalked these lands once the sun went down? Why else would he choose to dwell in my vicinity, if not for ignorance?

I shook my head, almost pitying the poor halfwit for what he had brought upon himself. But I should delight in showing him the truth soon enough; that he had elected himself a willing sacrifice for me and my hungry brides.

It was a shame that he vacated the house during the night, for I would have to wait longer to lay my eyes upon him. Would he not show himself before the house was finished?

“I see the building is progressing,” a voice whispered behind me. I’d been too lost in my thoughts to hear them approach. I turned, seeing two of the sisters behind me. They too were observing the house through the window. Their wild, windswept hair and bright eyes confirmed my suspicions that they had been dancing outside.

“Yes,” I muttered. “It would seem so.”

“What a blight upon the castle,” the other sister said, her fair skin glittering in the moonlight. “I hope the trouble is worth the meal.”

“It will be,” I said, casually flicking my hand towards the half-built dwelling, “if only the fool would hurry up and be done with it.”

The next night, more progress had been made on the building, but the owner had still not shown himself. I grew more agitated that I was allowing this to happen, but reminded myself that I would soon enough be able to quench my thirst.

So night after night, as the moon began to wane, the house’s shadow grew bigger, and my hunger grew stronger. The fool always fled before night fell, leaving the evidence of his daytime activities for me to observe. The dwelling had taken on the same shape of the peasant houses in the surrounding settlements; white stone and timber, with a long thatched roof. He had even tilled the soil into a small garden, erecting a wooden fence around the plot in front of the building. But compared to my grand castle, with its dark crumbling bricks, spiralling towers and winding, labyrinthine rooms, it was a blight. And I wanted it gone.

Finally, more than a week after the house was little more than a pile of stone and timber, one of the sisters woke me with news that the structure was finished.

I rose from my coffin, sluggish and weary from slumber, and fastened my coat about my neck. The sisters had already lit the fire, but the air was chilled.

I followed her to the window and set my gaze upon the house. A single candle sat in the windowsill, guttering in a draught. A lit candle. Did that mean the house was occupied? The fool had not fled this night.

“It’s time,” I announced, “to show this fool once and for all what happens when you anger the Count.” The other sisters joined us, and I turned towards them with a slow smile. “I hope you are hungry.”

The three sisters screeched in delight, grasping each other’s hands and dancing in circles, their gowns fluttering around their legs. The fire roared in the hearth.

But as I began to cross the room, one of the sisters stopped me with a gasp.

“Master, wait. There’s someone at the gate.” She was pointing out of the window. I peered down at the large wrought-iron gate that fronted the castle, my eyes narrowing. A figure stood by the fence, carrying a lantern. His face glowed in the flickering light, revealing a sharp, sloping nose and dark eyes.

“Who would be foolish enough to call upon me at this hour?” I snarled, my black coat twisting around me as I turned from the window.

“Perhaps your new neighbour,” one of the sisters answered, “has come to hasten our feast.”

“Perhaps,” I said, already striding towards the doorway.

The sisters swept after me, whispering amongst themselves. Flames guttered as we passed lit candles, stirring the dust at our feet and disturbing billowing cobwebs. There was a haste to our movements as we descended the tower. It had certainly been a while since we’d had prey wander into our arms like this.

Crossing the foyer, the long red carpet spilling out like blood, I threw open the doors and stepped out into the chilled night, the three sisters stepping in my wake. The moon was a pale sickle, its silvery glow dancing around my shadowless feet as the stranger at the gates called out to me.

“Hello there!”

Struck by his brazenness, I almost flew at him in anger, but restrained myself. Ignorant minds really were unfathomable. With a flick of my wrist, the gates began to creak open. The man remained at the threshold, holding his lantern aloft as he stared back at me. He was of medium build, with stocky shoulders and a mop of thick tousled hair. His clothes were poorly made, covered in dirt and patches. He had the audacity to smile at me as I glared in return.

“What business have you here at my castle?” I demanded, wanting to sate my curiosity before I sated my hunger.

The man cleared his throat, raising his lantern to the crude house sitting barely thirty metres behind him. So this was indeed the proprietor of the building; what a brave, albeit dimwitted, man he was to present himself before me like this. “I’ve just this morning finished constructing my house,” he said, not seeming to notice the displeasure on my face, “and a slight issue has come to my attention.”

“An… issue?” I repeated, my brows arching sharply.

“Yes. During the day, the leftmost tower of your castle casts a shadow over my garden,” the man said regretfully. “I hoped that you might be amicable enough to remove it. Or at the very least relocate the tower, so that it does no harm the roses I am trying to grow. All life needs sunlight, after all.”

I stared at him, completely aghast. Behind me, even the sisters had been stunned into silence. The audacity of this imbecile, to ask me to change my own castle for his benefit. The man was not right in the head, surely.

“How dare you–” I began to seethe, but the man interrupted me, lifting a finger as if hushing a child.

“I do understand it is a large undertaking I’m asking of you, but my gratitude would be immense,” he added.

“You think I care about your gratitude?” I sneered at him, clenching my fists beneath my coat. The gall of this man. Who did he think he was? “Do you know who I am?”

The man stared at me, the lanternlight dancing over his blank expression. “You are the owner of this castle, I had presumed?”

“Precisely. And what makes you think that I, as the Count of this castle, would do the bidding of a mere peasant?”

The man scowled at me, a shadow encroaching upon his face. “I shall ask you again, and I do hope you will be quite civil this time. Will you remove the tower from your castle so that my roses might see the light?”

“I don’t give a damn about your roses,” I snapped.

“Now, there’s no need to be rude,” the man said, his voice turning bristly. The shadows deepened around his eyes as he narrowed them. “I’m asking for a simple favour–”

I scoffed in his face, my rage burning beneath my skin. It took a lot to make a vampire’s blood burn hot. I almost couldn’t believe what he was saying. This fool considered the reconstruction of my ancient castle a mere favour? Asking me to tear down part of my fortress so that he might grow some roses.

I took a measured step towards him, lifting my shoulders to appear taller. My fangs were itching to taste his blood. For all the disrespect he had shown me, there was no escape. I would suck this man dry by the night’s end, leaving nothing but a fleshless husk.

“Once again, I implore you to consider my–”

I was no longer in the mood to listen to his insane ramblings. He had agitated me far too much to go back from this. I would show him, and anyone else who might learn of tonight, what happens to those who cross me.

Baring my fangs, I lunged forward, ready to sink my teeth into his neck.

In one swift motion, the man pulled his hand back into a fist and threw it towards me. Blinded partially by the lanternlight, I did not see the attack until his knuckles met my face.

Pain exploded through my jaw, and there was a terrible snap as my left fang bore the brunt of his punch, splitting completely in half. The hit landed with enough force to send me staggering backwards and, incredulous and in shock, I fell to the ground.

Dirt bit into my eyes as I landed face-down, my broken fang scraping against my lower lip. Sputtering, I raised my head, just as the man lifted his light and calmly made his way back to his house.

Behind me, the sisters watched him leave in a choked silence, before hastening to help me back to my feet.

To say I had been dealt a great humiliation was an understatement. How did a mortal man possess such strength? Enough to break one of my precious fangs and completely overpower me.

With a bruised face, and an even more bruised ego, I hobbled back into my castle, the three sisters trailing silently after me.

By the following night, the leftmost tower had been partially disassembled, leaving a gaping wound in the side of the castle. Wind gusted through like howling wraiths, immediately extinguishing any fire I tried to light, leaving a heavy chill in the air. The sisters, at least, seemed to delight in the pool of moonlight that was cast upon the open ground.

Workers had been swarming the castle all day, interrupting my sleep with their banging hammers and chiselling tools as they took the tower apart brick by brick, but I had little choice. The man had made his demands, proven his strength, and forced my hand. Now I had to destroy my own magnificent tower so that the fool might grow his roses. And I hadn’t been able to harvest even a drop of blood either.

This was a defeat, and a humiliation, that would take centuries to heal.

Dracula Got Punched OST: https://scareinabox.bandcamp.com/album/dracula-got-punched

Hello Creepypasta People,

The Discord server for Shadow Box Archives is now open and free for everyone to join, while retaining some optional paid channels associated specifically with our Patreon and that are audience-oriented.

What the heck is Shadow Box Archives?

It's a shared Patreon between curated writers and artists, including creepypasta authors of NoSleep fame, where we post our stuff and share any profits from that Patreon and its associated merch stores equally.

We also have a website, ShadowBoxArchives.com, where anyone can show up, join, and post content as they like, similar to a subreddit. The website is nonmonetized on our end, but we do encourage individual creators to share their own payment links and buttons on their posts.

Aside from sharing our art, we have two main components to our ethos: we're anti-Ai and we're a firm believer that money should be flowing to artists, writers, and other content creators, not the other way around.

All of the channels on our Discord server for creators are free and open to all. The only paid channels we have are audience-oriented and specifically for the Shadow Box Archives Patreon. In addition to sharing our SBA Patreon story and art content (which, by the way, all becomes free there after seven days), we want to help cultivate a wonderful community for posting content, discussing craft, sharing resources, and supporting human creators.

We are planning some more contests (free to enter, of course) for recruiting new featured contributors for the Shadow Box Archives Patreon, so that is planned for the horizon as well.

Here is a link to our Discord server if you would like to join: https://discord.gg/Xf7vaYEAT

We would also like to expand our community beyond writers and artists to include game, website, and film development, so if you have any friends in those areas, either as a hobby or professionally, feel free to invite them to this server as well.

Happy Halloween season!

Okay I really like him and I dont know how to dm photos so I’m posting it here after holding onto it for like four days hiii hiiiii

"really BAD Shakespeare" Episode 5: Prodigious Birth is live.

If you’ve been waiting for the moment when the story tilts fully into televised prophecy, mother‑son creepiness, and a very rude time jump, this is the one.

Readers have already written in. One quit their job. One threw a muffin. One burned their copy and bought another. Episode 5 is that kind of episode.

If you’re caught up, dive in. If you’re new, this is a surprisingly good place to start because nothing makes sense anyway.

Episode 5: Prodigious Birth is live. Go read it before the kid wakes you up.

A friend of mine once told me about something called “This Man.” If you don’t know who that is, I’ll explain it quickly. Apparently, it’s a man that people all over the world claim to have seen in their dreams. When my friend showed me a picture of him, I had this strange feeling like I knew him, but I didn’t know from where. I didn’t think much of it until that night. When I went to sleep, I saw him. I was standing on a street, surrounded by people, and in the crowd there he was, staring directly at me. Slowly, this uneasy feeling crept in and my vision became blurry and distorted. I tried to move, to walk away, but like in most dreams I couldn’t. When I looked back at him, he was gone, as if he had never been there. I wish I had known then what he really was, but I didn’t. The next day I didn’t think much about it until I had another dream. This time I was in a dark forest. I walked through it searching for something, even though I didn’t know what. But I felt like if I saw it, I would recognize it, so I kept looking around until I saw him. A small figure, a dwarf sitting on a tree stump, staring at me. That same heavy, suffocating fear returned, like I wasn’t supposed to see him. I quickly looked away only to realize he was now standing exactly where I had just looked, like he had teleported. I looked away again and started running, that thing filled me with pure panic. I ran along the crackling forest path, not daring to look back until I reached a cliff. I turned around and I saw him. I woke up drenched in sweat. From that point on things got worse. For two years I kept seeing something in my dreams, sometimes the dwarf, sometimes something else, but always the same feeling of being watched. Then one day I woke up in what I think was sleep paralysis, at least that’s what I thought, but what if I told you it happened almost every day for an entire week. Sometimes I saw things that weren’t real, once instead of a Christmas tree I saw Barney. I know how that sounds, but it was real. My mom told me I should take a break from all the work I was constantly doing. I knew she was right, but I ignored her. That same night I went to sleep again. I woke up in a dream, but this one felt different. I was on a spaceship with some friends and we were having a party. Everything felt normal until I fell asleep inside the dream. I woke up again, this time in my room, but something was wrong. The hallway looked different and the living room was now the kitchen. Everything was almost normal, but not quite. I looked out the window and saw a person in pajamas running outside, screaming while they ran. That’s when I knew something was very wrong. Suddenly I was somewhere else, a beautiful landscape in the Alps, and then a man approached me. He looked normal, too normal. “You belong to me,” he said, “for one month.” I laughed, he didn’t. He told me I was going to stay here in this dream for a month and that nothing good would happen to me. What shocked me the most wasn’t what he said, it was that he knew he was part of a dream. I wish it had been a joke, but it wasn’t. I was there for a month. Time didn’t make sense anymore. I fell asleep inside dreams and woke up somewhere else again and again. Different places, different people. Some tried to help me, others tried to break me. Some even spoke about the dream itself like they knew it wasn’t real. But one thing never changed, that constant horrible feeling like I was being watched, like something was enjoying this. I can’t tell you everything that happened because it would be too much, but it was cruel. Maybe only a few hours passed in reality, but not for me, for me it was a month. At the very end I found myself in an empty place, silent and still. Then there was a flicker. He was there again, the dwarf. And this time there were words, written in something that looked like blood. “I am Pendrick.” I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak. Then the text changed slowly. “Would you like to play again sometime?” And then I woke up. Since that day I still get chills thinking about it. So I need to ask, do any of you know what or who Pendrick is? Please tell me!

**THE LAST CRACK: LONG HORSE AND THE INFINITE PARADOX**

*A Trevor Henderson fan theory / alternate-universe story by Rasmus Öster*

**What if Long Horse’s greatest power was also the thing that could destroy the entire multiverse?**

This is my original fan-made theory and story inspired by Trevor Henderson’s creatures. None of the events below are confirmed canon.

**CHAPTER 1: THE GUARDIAN WHO SAW THE FUTURE**

Long Horse is different from the other creatures. Despite his terrifying appearance, he isn’t a monster who wants to hurt people. He warns humans when danger is approaching.

But what if there’s a reason he always seems to know when something terrible is about to happen?

What if Long Horse can see the future?

Perhaps he sees people who are about to encounter dangerous creatures and tries to warn them before it’s too late. His cracking bones are a sign that he’s nearby.

He doesn’t chase people to hunt them. He appears because he knows something is coming.

But there’s one thing even Long Horse doesn’t understand.

**Changing the future can have consequences.**

**CHAPTER 2: THE INFINITE PARADOX**

Imagine Long Horse sees a human in danger. He travels to warn them, and the person avoids the disaster.

But by changing what happens, Long Horse changes the future he originally saw.

In another universe, the person might never receive his warning. In yet another, events might unfold differently.

Every change creates another possible timeline.

Long Horse continues trying to save people, but the future keeps changing before he can reach them. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He only knows that people are in danger and he has to help.

The paradoxes begin multiplying.

One universe after another starts disappearing.

The very creature trying to protect humanity may have unknowingly set something in motion that threatens every universe in existence.

**The infinite paradox has begun.**

**CHAPTER 3: THE LAST UNIVERSE**

Eventually, only one universe remains.

In this final universe, one child survives the destruction caused by the paradox.

That child is me, Rasmus Öster.

I remember everything.

I remember the universes that disappeared. I remember Long Horse trying to save people. I remember how his warnings changed the future and how the paradox kept growing.

Everyone else has forgotten, but I haven’t.

And I realise that if the multiverse is ever going to be restored, someone must break the cycle.

The paradox must end, even if it means Long Horse can no longer exist.

**CHAPTER 4: THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE**

I find a way to stop the paradox.

The universes begin returning. Worlds that disappeared are restored, and the people who were lost return to existence.

But there’s a price.

Long Horse must sacrifice himself.

His existence is erased, and the chain of events that allowed Trevor Henderson’s creatures to be imagined is erased with him.

Trevor never has the dream about Long Horse.

He never creates Long Horse or the other creatures.

The entire world returns to normal, and nobody knows what happened.

Nobody remembers the creatures.

Nobody remembers the guardian who sacrificed himself to save everything.

Nobody remembers the countless universes that were lost.

**Except me.**

**CHAPTER 5: THE BOY WHO REMEMBERED**

I know that Long Horse existed.

I know what he did for the multiverse.

And I refuse to let his story disappear forever.

So I tell Trevor Henderson everything I remember. I describe the creatures, their appearances, their abilities, and the events that led to the destruction of the multiverse.

But I ask for one important change.

**Make them friendly.**

They can still look terrifying. They can still be mysterious and powerful. But they no longer have the urge to kill.

Instead of hunting people, they can protect them, warn them about danger, and use their abilities to help humanity.

Trevor listens to my ideas.

Then, one night, he has a dream.

He sees an impossibly long skeletal neck stretching through the darkness. A familiar skull appears before him.

*CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.*

It’s Long Horse.

But this time, something is different.

Long Horse returns with the same abilities he had before. He can still see danger approaching and warn people before it happens.

However, his warnings no longer create paradoxes.

Trevor creates Long Horse, and the other creatures return too.

**The multiverse has its guardians again.**

**CHAPTER 6: A NEW BEGINNING**

All the creatures remember what happened in the original multiverse.

They remember the destruction. They remember the paradox. They remember Long Horse’s sacrifice.

But they no longer have the urge to kill.

They have a second chance to exist without causing the same catastrophe.

Long Horse can once again warn people about danger without risking the existence of every universe.

The creatures are still strange, powerful, and frightening to look at, but now they can protect the very humans they once threatened.

And the child who remembered everything has helped bring them back.

**THE FINAL SCENE: THE LAST CRACK BECOMES THE FIRST**

One night, I’m standing outside beneath the stars.

Everything is peaceful.

Then I hear a familiar sound.

*CRACK… CRACK… CRACK…*

I look up.

Long Horse is there.

The creature who sacrificed his existence to save the multiverse has returned.

I look at him and smile.

“Welcome back, buddy.”

Long Horse gently lowers his skull toward me.

For the first time, he doesn’t have to sacrifice himself. He doesn’t have to risk destroying the multiverse to save someone.

He can simply do what he was meant to do: protect people from danger.

The creatures are back. The universes are safe. And the guardian who was once forgotten has another chance to make a difference.

**THE END.**

Or perhaps…

THE BEGINNING OF A BETTER MULTIVERSE.

Please dont ban me okay i Would upload this in the trevor henderson but i got banned permanetly when i got reddit today i didnt know the rules so Please dont ban just give me a warning first it is ai but its my idea

*AI generated pictures and AI edits in the writing; everything else is human created*

Wanted to draw a more ethereal / cosmic piece for Violet! Playing around with light beams, starry gradients, and cosmic atmospheres.

Spot the little UFO in the corner? 🛸

Update Regarding My Game & Current Project 📢❗

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share a quick update on my work. Due to unexpected personal circumstances and a loss of prepared development files, I will unfortunately not be moving forward with the game adaptation at this time.

However, I am excited to announce that I have shifted my focus toward writing! I am now publishing The Hollow Rider featuring Violet’s human arc as a written story on Inkitt. The first two chapters are officially available to read now on the inkitt app! (User: vexcutter).

Thank you all so much for your continued support. If you’d like to keep up with my artwork and updates, feel free to check out my DeviantArt page (VexCutter)! ✨💜

*

PART 1 FURGUS

The town's population has been dwindling for a long time now. Over a decade ago there was just over thirty thousand, now today there's barely ten. It was a thriving society after it was erected back in 1884 when it was heavily involved in the coal and timber industries then with the railroads. It was like that for many years to come. I would hear of the olden days from my grandfather of the streets were always bustling, every shop was self owned, and there was a home for everyone. Now if you drive through you want to make sure to keep your windows up and doors locked. The once colorful streets are now bleak and decrepit, empty but yet full of the morbid decadent dregs that can't filter through their self harming depressive state of being. Here, you're either an addict of some sort slowly drowning themselves in self pity waiting to die, or someone clinging to the hope of one day moving far away and leave this place forgotten.

The mom and pop shops died during my childhood when the brand name company's made their stamps upon the real estate in the various areas. What was once a general store owned and passed down through a well known family name now is a Verizon store that's only open four days out of the week. Diners that served fulfilling home cooked meals shut down or transformed to fast food burger joints. The work force is so bad today that they actually closed the Wendy's and there's always a WE ARE HIRING sign on all the others. Now I have to drive thirty five minutes, two towns over for a Baconator.

The neighborhoods are the worse. I remember a time growing up at the tail end of the century when there was no such thing as the grass being greener on the other side. Everyone's yards flourished and shined of what appeared like neons. Lawn's were decorated to match the homeowners' personality with picket white fences and the houses were vibrant and securely welcoming to gaze upon. Now it's like someone took a massive dump on the roofings and stripped the soul of each home to the floorboards. No tender love and care for those structures in sight. No one even wants to attempt to refurbish the properties and try to flip them for a profit. Not worth anyone's time. Let them rot until they fall is the mindset. Bleed the renters of all they got. It's rare to see a shred of true humanity around here anymore.

My name is Ian. Ian Moone. I'm a nobody. I'm not on here to claim of being a security guard, or paramedic, or another odd jobbed person who's employed somewhere they saw something strange. I tend to migrate from job to job. Everything and anything that involves some sort of general labor. My stubborn attitude tends to get me in trouble a lot and I barely stay at a single job for more than a year. At least enough to draw unemployment for a little while until I can find some other means of a steady 9 to 5 paycheck.

But enough about me.

My tale begins where I mentioned about the town's population shrinking by the year. Well I've been taking notice to it regressing rapidly in the last few months. People are disappearing left and right, up, down and from around the corner without so much as of any evidence or word that they were leaving or had left at all. I only first noticed the unknown ordeal when old Jimmy hadn't been at his corner begging for change. He was a raggedy elder fellow who, like most people in this town, got down on his luck so to speak and was lowered to living through his days in the gutter. No family or friends around to speak of when his troubles truly started. No one willing to help him stay on his feet or give him the confidence to strife forward. I would always pass him on my way to the gas station down the street from my apartment. Some days I had the spare change to offer him, but most days the best I could do was a cup of coffee from my own supply and wishing him luck.

His absence didn't bother me too much until two weeks had passed and there was no sign of him. I asked around the other homeless but all I could get was there being no site of the old man. I was directed to where he bunked, and upon going there I couldn't find him. Just a refrigerator box with some musty blankets stacked on top of one another inside for padding. There was some magazines and newspapers around, the latest issue being from the last day I saw him. My inspection shortly came to a close when I couldn't find anything else that could tell me of what happened to him. I check some of the shelters and the hospital, but nothing still. I gave up after a couple days not knowing what to think of old Jimmy vanishing.

I take notice to a lot a things. It's a force of habit and strange coincidences bother me the most. That being said, I took notice to something else besides Jimmy being gone. During my pursuit, I took notice to there being an increase in MISSING posters stapled on telephone poles and pinned or tapped to various walls along my walking routes either to work or to the store or to...wherever. Now you're going to start thinking, oh it's about kidnapped kids or what other. Nothing of the sort. It was a range of different ages, races, social status and the ratio between the sexes was steadily even. It wasn't that people were just standing up from the middle of what they were doing and leaving the town in the rear view mirror, but it was what most were thinking.

It was unexplainably baffling to the police. They thought runaways and sudden relocation at first, but vehicles were left behind never to move, no clothes were packed or money stored in a hidden place, like as if they were going about the middle of their daily life and then poof, gone like smoke in the wind. No ransoms were called in to be demanded. The amount missing at a time varied as well. One night it's one person, another day it's two, then it could be whole family the next. I don't believe people realize the scope of it all given if their not looking in the right place. Jimmy aside from other homeless and non importants not put on posters adds up to how many could possibly be disappearing.

Now where I come into the picture of all this is when I had made my weekly round to the local herb's merchant, or plainly, my pot dealer. Crank was the type most people wouldn't care too much for to just leave out of the blue. It's expected at most whether he goes on the run from the law or is eventually arrested and sent up the river. I stopped at his house last week with no answer from his cell or when I knocked on his door like I was the police. I knew I shouldn't have, but I let myself inside anyways. Crank sometimes tends to leave the back patio door unlocked.

"Hey Crank, you in?!" I yelled out within the confines of his home. What was probably once a decent family living space before was now reduced to a hollowed shell of its former self. The wallpapers were dull and peeling showing the original wooden planks that were most likely termite infested, floors permanently stained of unknown chemicals to burn marks and crusty furniture shredded to strings. The rotting smell of old food in clustered trash bags took over most of the floor in the kitchen and a pyramid of dishes piled in the sink growing a new form of life with as much mold caked over the surfaces. There wasn't enough incense or scented candles in the world to mask the horrific, stale odor in the air. I never understood how anyone can live in conditions such as this. But he did sell the best stuff you could get around here without having to travel far, so beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

"Hey Crank! You home?!" My voice echoed bouncing off the walls from one silent room into the next. No response from anywhere. I check every room on the ground floor then upstairs in the bedroom. Nothing but a half made bed, a room full of naked women on posters and marijuana memorabilia spread about, but no sign of the man anywhere. It was then as I studied his gaudy bedroom, from the corner of my eye I catch a shadow streak from under another room's door slip. Cautiously I approach the door and slowly creak it open. Nothing at first. It seemed like an empty enough room given all the boxes. A brushing sound suddenly comes from one of the cardboard containers. Something glided with quickness into open view giving me a frightful jump.

"Fuck! Jesus Chr...you made skip a beat!" I yell out to the creature.

I glance into the entrancing green eyes glaring back at me on the floor. Crank's cat, errr...I forget his name. Furgus or something stupid like that. A grey tabby, not rare, but not so common in this town.

"Meow!" The feline wails to me. I did see his bowls in the kitchen void of any cat kibble or aqua. He follows me back downstairs and I indulge in his need of substance. He rubs himself against my leg in what I hoped was a thankful gesture before he devoured the dry food and gulped down the water causing himself to choke and hack out a bit. The little guy was acting as if he was on the brink of starvation.

"How long has Crank been gone?", I say to the furball at my feet. No answer as expected.

Given the state of the place and his lazy demeanor, I knew for a fact he loved and cared for this cat. So leaving him behind to starve wasn't an option if he just went somewhere else for a long period of time. I thought at first maybe something happened to him. I called our one mutual friend asking if they had seen Crank anywhere in the last week. I was informed they had not stating they couldn't get him on the phone in the last couple of days as well. I try his cell once more. As I stand there in the kitchen with Furgus, suddenly the mumble-rap song Crank had attuned to his phone starts resounding back in the living room. After shortly examining around, I find it lodged within the creases of the couch cushions.

It was then I was lead to think he wasn't coming back and that something awful may have happened to him. I'm one hundred percent sure he wasn't arrested seeing as how there was a very large bag of ganja on the coffee table in front of said couch. Even his money as well along with various other things he would have taken with him. I thought best not to take anything other than what I came for, which was the entire big bag left over. Some might call me stupid for not taking the money, but in my experience people look for the money before the drugs. I found it in better circumstance to let it there and not tell a soul.

My taking suspicious notice of people disappearing heightened after what I had done next. I didn't have it in me to leave Furgus there to fend for himself. I don't think letting him go to run the streets wondering when and where his next meal will be as a good idea or even so a moral one at that. I took the orange fuzzed flea bag to the Humane Society. Well, I attempted to anyways but was rejected when I was then told they were fully booked with both cats and dogs. When I asked as to why that was, the woman looked to me with a sorrowful gleam in her eyes.

"Most of the recent ones are abandons. Their owners just moved town and left the poor angels behind. Such a shame."

I thanked her for the time and only had one other idea to help out my new compatriot. I went to my mothers.

Part 2 Mr. Donavinn

"Why can't you take care of him? I don't want your weed dealers cat!" Mother being as cheerfully enthusiastic as ever. I hope you can read the sarcasm there.

"Well, I can't take him in mother. Mr. Ruppard will have a fit and probably kick me out of the complex if I show up with an animal. Or worse, make me pay extra on rent which he charges a ridiculous amount of as it is." Myself trying to state my argument to sound as dire as possible. "Plus you like cats better than I do anyways."

"I haven't had a cat in over five years Ian. Boots was a good cat and I said that would be my last heartbreak." Now I know where I get my stubbornness from.

Miraculously, Furgus takes the plunge from my arms and nonchalantly steps over across the glass kitchen table with grace to my mother and gives off a sympathetic "meow". I could only imagine his big saucer eyes giving off that shine to her. Witnessing her struggle to fight off locking eye to eye with him, she gives in and melts her hands into his fur, giving him long strokes from his head to tail. He rubs his face onto hers and begins the motor running sound within him.

"Oh jeez Ian. Yes, I will take him, for now." She's says pointing a forewarning finger at me. "Just until there's room at the shelter or your friend turns up. I can't afford him for too long." She continues on.

"I can bring some food over here and there to help out." I assured her. "Who knows, maybe Crank will show up soon."

"You do that." She replied and took Furgus into her arms giving him a massage along his spine and belly. He seemed to accept his fate and embraced the loving without a fuss. "Did I tell you Dick Donavinn died little over a month back?"

"The guy who lived across from us?" I answer with my own question as my thumb rises to the air in the direction the house on the other side of the street.

She shook her head. "Yeah. I had just heard about it from Dorothy next door. He was such a good man. It was a shame how things turned out for him."

She's referring to when he was hauled out of his own home and whisked away to the old folks manor on the other side of town by social services. Richard Donavinn lived across from us since before I was born and when my parents had moved in. He was always a kind and helpful neighbor. His wife had died some years back from cancer. They never had any children of their own. He was an odd fellow from what I recall, but harmless nonetheless. Always wanting to chat about the history of the area and it's secrets no one knows about. To be honest I never payed much mind to him. Him and dad interacted the most with one another.

"Dementia wasn't it?" I asked her.

"The poor dear. He would be out there spouting nonsense the last year to anyone who would pass. His health has been on the cusp for some time now. I heard he would make it downtown ranting on to random people. Apparently, he got violent one day because no one would listen to him. That was when they took him up to Greystone. They didn't as so much put his stuff away in storage. Everything is still in there." She points as I look back and out through the living room windows to the yellow house over the way. It's definitely seen better days. The side paint was chipped to beyond salvaging. It almost looked to me like it was slowly transitioning into a haunted hot spot. "Had to call the cops a couple times thinking looters were breaking into the place."

"What was he ranting about?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Something about he had to tell someone a story. No one pays no mind to other people anymore, especially their elders. Lost in those devices. Funny to me that everyone can afford those small flat screens but can't afford to spruce up their place or god forbid buy some decent clothes." Mother with her everlasting gripes. "This whole town has gone to hell and back in a woven basket."

"What story?" I then ask.

"I don't know. Guess maybe I should've listened to him before it was too late. Life today keeps you a busy body. Poor Richard."

Probably one of the oddest subjects I had ever discussed with my mother ever in my life. The death of Mr. Donavinn hadn't moved me much at that moment. It wasn't like we were related or close in any way. I felt bad for the guy though. After another hour and a half had passed of conversing with my mother, I took my leave to go home. Carrying a cat around town and listening to her can exhaust anyone. My walk home was almost uneventful.

It was that hour when the sun was gradually settling down into the horizon. The sky would be pitch by the time I made it home. I carried on until I got to the KwikTyme Mart just a few blocks away from my apartment being in need of rolling papers and something to munch on afterwards. Approaching the store, I came across Betty Tunic. We had actually went to high school together, but she had dropped out junior year and fell hard into drug scene. I could barely recognize her anymore. Her face was sunken in and riddled with scratch marks and acne. She sat against the wall outside under the store light curled up with a blanket. She seemed on edge.

"...light brings me joy...light bring me peace...", she was whispering to herself.

"Betty? You doing alright?" I asked her.

She looks up to me taking in my face. Maybe she couldn't recognize me.

"Ian?" I shake my head to confirm her guess. "I lost Terry."

"You, lost Terry? Your boyfriend?" More like her pimp. Betty and Terry were notorious addicts rumored around that he would prostitute her out so they had the money for their fix. "I just saw you guys together the other day."

"Yeah. I lost him. He's gone. Gotta stay in the light." She muttered on.

She had to have been tripping on something. "You need anything hun?"

She took a few moments to answer me. "Do you have any smokes?"

"No, but I can grab you a pack. Give me a couple minutes. I'll be right out." I never took to cigarettes myself but guess I was in some mood to help out strays today. She shook her head and quietly repeated her mantra from when I approached her. I was thinking to probably call the paramedics to check on her. I didn't spend too long in the store having gotten an extra drink for Betty along with her cigarettes. "Ok Betty, I didn't know what brand you wanted but here..." I cut myself off from the sight of Betty not being where I had left her. All that remained was the blanket she covered herself with. "Betty?!" I yell out as I look up and down the street then into the alley that sat between the store and the next building. "BETTY?!" I yell a bit louder now.

Nothing.

She was suddenly gone.

Rumor has it that if you stay on a retro game for too long, 'The Princess' will eventually appear. When she does, your only choice is to kill the power right then and there. The ones who hesitated? They were never the same again... quite literally.

Based on "The Princess" Creepypasta (Best gaming creepypasta IMO)