Chapter Text
Tim sat alone in a cold motel room, the December freezing gusts just outside. The yellow wallpaper staring back at him as he spaced out into his thoughts. He forgot himself, and he could feel the faint memory of a few months ago haunting beside him. A lighter sat between his fingers as he frowned, pushing those memories back down as he fidgeted.
Jay is gone.
click.
Brian is gone.
click
Alex is gone.
click
click
The empty spaces where they should have been breathing, is where he breathed for them. He would hear sirens rushing down the highway nearby every once in a while, and occasionally he had hoped they found a body. Maybe Jay’s or Brian’s would turn back up. Maybe the police would find the abandoned youtube channel and trace those murders back to him. Maybe Alex had been right all along and he needed to end it. Tim is patient zero after all according to those ghosts, but surely others had experienced this..? He had seen how popular the monster had become online as a fictional creature.
“Creepypasta”. Tim scoffed and closed his eyes at the thought, trying to recollect. What a stupid fucking trend. He had completely avoided the internet for the most part since June.
He tilted his head towards his phone next to him on the motel bed.
Tim knew this monster was real. He had lived through the worst of what it could do, or at least he hoped that was the worst of it all. There had to be somebody out there who viewed this the same way as him. He paused, reaching for the phone. Quickly pulling up Google and thinking through the options, ways to get around the creepypasta craze.
“Mysterious deaths 2014”
Nothing. Okay.
“Man in the background of photo”
Stock images.
“Faceless monster”
Yōkai.
Tim laid the phone in his lap and laid back into the mattress, fidgeting with the lighter in his other hand. He stared up at the ceiling and took a long deep breath, quietly dismissing that ounce of hope. Maybe it only haunted a few people at a time? Maybe the people haunted by it before them were simply dead or forgot? The possibilities were truly endless. Maybe he was going about this wrong, or maybe there just wasn’t any other person stupid enough to record as much as Jay did. He picked the phone back up and hovered it above him, his thumb flicking through the few apps on it before landing on Twitter.
He had avoided the app since the last entry. There wasn’t any point. Alex, Jay and Totheark were all dead and he did not want any more mysteries on his plate. Well, until he got too in his head about Alex’s theory. Tim stared at the front page. Meaningless posts flooding below the text box. Countless untouched notifications, none of them really drew his attention away from what he came there to do. He cleared them out before typing up his new tweet.
Long time no talk.I was just curious if any of you have seen others go through what we did. It’s a long shot. - Tim
Posted.
Tim stared at the screen for a long moment before putting his phone down once again and rolling over. His body felt sore, and his mind felt more foggy than it did even a few moments ago. He was chasing after ghosts. The headboard stared back at him instead this time, disgusting down to every detail. He was sure he would get plenty of responses, plenty of users thinking they had something, but he knew that the best he might get were those damn creepypasta videos. ‘Masky’ and ‘Hoodie’ memes. And maybe trolls for days telling him to sell dvds. His phone vibrated, but he felt bitter. If anything, he was going to prove Alex’s point. If anything, Tim would want to kill himself more. And maybe he should have after Alex was dead, because at the very least, it could have ended the cycle there.
Another vibration.
Another.
Another.
Tim rolled back over and picked up the phone, his eyes feeling heavy and sore with the blue light waking up. Replies, likes and retweets rolled through his lock screen. He skimmed them over, unsure of what he was searching for. Some replies were just ‘yes’, some were exactly what he had been expecting, some were asking if he was okay. More begin to pile in.
Wow, so people still follow this account.
He continued to watch the notifications before placing it down. He’d come back to it another time, but god, he needed a shower. Somewhere he could think and relax before coming back to the internet again. And admittedly it was probably the first one he would have in a couple weeks now.
Buzz
Buzz
Buzz
Tim pushed himself up and the lighter and phone aside, stretching out the aches from his back. The constant engagement towards the tweet was going to get old, but his phone would die eventually.
He made it to the bathroom at a slow pace, the phone’s vibrations fading as he turned on the water. Lately he had to alternate to using left hand for most things now, and it was still a habit he was working on developing. The image of blood on his right was too deep in his subconscious, it affected how often he could look at it or perform certain motions without feeling like he was back at the college campus. Tim learned pretty quickly what it felt like to fall back into that memory of himself, and this was just yet another way he intended to keep it repressed. Living by very simple rules to keep his mind from releasing the past back onto him. Lock bathroom doors, someone will break in. Cold showers, blood is warm. Left hand, right is dirty. They were simple, but easy to forget. He rolled his shoulders back under the water and tried to ease his jaw. Showering was difficult. Relaxing was difficult.
Living was difficult.
Once out of the shower, he wrapped into a towel and returned to the bed, sitting on the edge of it and picking up his phone again. 521 notifications.
Christ.
He took a moment to dry off and get his clothes on. Careful to avoid Jay’s camera in his suitcase. Careful to avoid that damn green and navy flannel. A forgettable ugly sweater is just what he needed right now. Tim opened the notifications and scrolled through them.
“EverymanHYBRID”
“Have you seen the emh guys?”
“You should check out everymanhybrid”
It kept popping up. Every few responses were bullshit but this stood out. Intrusive questions and depressing comments aside, he stared at the name. There was a pretty good chance it was another ‘slenderman prank / social experiment’ tycoon. Or maybe, even ironically, a student film project? Tim searched the name on Twitter just to find it pretty quickly.
Your go-to source for the happy & healthy lifestyle on a budget!
Right. It even had a stupid little symbol like Marble Hornets, but it was different. Arrows. This was a.. Lifestyle channel? Joined in 2010 so not even remotely new to be attempting to jump on the slenderman prank trend. The recent posts were all Youtube links.
Blue Room.
October 19th 2014.
Tim frowned, scrolling back further. More youtube links. Then,
“Jeff's gone, Evan's beyond help, and I don't know where Steph is. Probably my last Halloween. [V]”
October 31st 2012.
He blinked. That format was similar to how Jay used to tweet. If anything, this mirrored most of their own Twitter account. His breath froze into a solid matter in his lungs and he could feel the weight drop into his stomach. A repost. Then below, a picture. A bloodied shirtless man in the woods turned away from the camera. The account name of the reposted user scrawled onto his back. He scrolled back to the top of their page only to discover they were in central Jersey. And if it was true from what the commenters mentioned, they were experiencing exactly what he had. There was a lot to catch up on from their end, but he had the time.
Tim hesitated, searching for a way to contact them privately with their dms turned off on Twitter. He redirected to the Youtube channel.
What the hell was he looking at?
The videos weren’t numbered entries, some of them were ominous, some were time periods, some were in all caps and demanding. Were these in order? Were they logged experiences of one or many? Exactly how many perspectives were there to this fucking monster? He was at least sure it hasn’t been a lifestyle channel in awhile, judging by just the titles and thumbnails alone. But all he needed was confirmation that he wasn't patient zero. If these guys were truly from New Jersey, and seemingly on the younger side, there was no way for them to ever have contact. Tim scrolled down to the very bottom of the page and stared at the first few ‘entries’. One noticeably standing out was titled ‘...’. He thumbed the video and moved back so he sat against the headboard of the motel bed.
The clips were mashed together and introjecting. Music cut in and out and so did conversation. Immediately there was discussion of ‘Slenderman’ breaking into ‘Evan’s’ house. Someone named ‘Nick’ dressed up as him.
Great. What a waste of time.
Tim rolled his eyes. Maybe Jay’s old followers really are gullible. The clips continued to jump around. Coughing, music, chatting, music, knives, woods, chatting- knives..
He exited the video and scrolled upwards again.
Joke’s Over.
Perfect, maybe a video that explains away that mess. Explains the picture on the twitter account and ominous videos to follow. He thumbed the video again and watched. Two men came in frame describing that they encountered something disturbing. Pictures of mutilated animals in bags being sent to them felt strangely… familiar. But, could be a nasty troll. It cut to a video they had recorded with the same boys in the woods explaining hiking tips. It wasn’t anything particularly special to him.
His mind lurched when static began consuming the screen. A siren sounding in the background. Evan sitting in the middle of bloody bags and laughing as the crew stares in horror during the clip.
Tim felt nausea rise from the pits of his stomach watching. He dropped the phone as he ran into the shitty motel bathroom again and puked into its toilet. Gagging and dry heaving, his right arm felt warm and wet again. His nails clinched into his palm, he swore he could feel the small knife in it. He could feel the ghost of the chest mount constricting his breath. TIm’s mind spun and he closed his eyes, but that only made everything worse. All he could feel is the drumming against his skull. That awful memory resurfacing of who he actually is. Push it down. Push it down. Down.
Down.
Down.
He wanted to repaper the rooms of the motel. He wanted to get away from vicious influences like the mask and the monster. From all his ghosts and himself. Tim slumped to the floor and curled, holding his arms against his stomach as he drooled onto the ground with violent tremors.
Down
Down
Down
Down
Down.
He wasn’t sure what came next. The rush of blood in his ears. The cold and wetness of the bathroom floor soaking through his sweater. Or the sound of a door.
Tim opened his eyes to a bright light. Back to where he started. He laid fetal position in the cooled woods of Rosswood the next morning.
What the fuck was that?
His hair still somehow wet. The man glanced around, immediately noting his headache. The parking lot was at least not too far, as he was still towards the beginning of the main trail entries. He pushed himself up, feeling sore and his vowels hollowed of substance. Tim stumbled towards the parking lot, seeing his car come into view. A panicked pat down of his pockets, he found his phone and keys.
Click
The car unlocked
Click
The door opens
Click
He belts in. Gripping the wheel and taking deep breaths as he stared ahead, attempting to recollect his mind. Glancing back to the backseats, his bags were packed and present. Somehow, fucking somehow, he made it to Rosswood last night with all his belongings. Unzipping one of the bags, he pulled out his camera and propped it up on the dashboard to face himself.
He needed to get the hell out of Alabama. Tim shifted the car into gear and backed out, beginning back towards the main roads. Glancing back to the preview screen of the camera for a moment before hitting record.