dead hands (my mh/creepypasta crossover au)

chapter one 💕

(TW: violence/gore/general uncomfortable imagery, literally the vaguest possible allusion to childhood sexual abuse)

it had been three months. three months since the events of marble hornets had taken place. three months since timothy wright had fled from alabama and started a new life in southern arkansas. three months since he had gotten a job at a grocery store, moved from his car to a tiny, nearly empty apartment, and lost all contact with everyone he'd ever known. he found himself living an entirely new and foreign life that he didn't admire, but didn't particularly dislike either. his new life was repetitive and dull, but it's what he felt that he needed, so he never made any effort to change, instead spending his free time reading on the floor of his apartment. although he understood that the recovery process would be difficult, he felt as though things were starting to get better. the events of marble hornets were slowly slipping from his memory, and the nightmares became less and less frequent.

however, there was one catch. no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to avoid the subconscious echoes that seemed to be calling him back into the woods. although his mental state was improving, a twisting, pulling feeling would beckon him into the nearest forested area every time he let his mind wander. he tried to solve the problem by just keeping himself occupied, which worked for a while, but stopped working when the feeling somehow became a voice.

"tim? is that you?"

"c'mon, i can't wait out here forever!"

"the forest is just outside! don't you want to meet me here?"

the voice certainly wasn't one that he recognised. it was high pitched and young. normally, his hallucinations would take the voice of brian, amy, jessica, or jay, and on bad days, even alex. never this. fortunately for him, he learned to drown out the voice pretty quickly, just like he had with all of the other calling voices that he had heard throughout his life.

that seemed like the worst of the torment, until the voice became a physical presence. tim swore that he could see a small figure standing at the end of dark hallways or in the corner of his eye. if he wasn't worried before, than he certainly was now, because the splatters of mud that kept appearing inside of his apartment couldn't just be coming from nowhere.

he figured that it just had to be another vision. there was no way that there were any more mysterious figures left over from The Operator's reign. or maybe there were. tim began to feel as though maybe The Operator hadn't just stayed in alabama after he left. maybe this new life wasn't as safe as he thought it was. he became enveloped in the idea that there was no safety, no escape from that creature. as the figure of the shadow child grew more definite, so did his fear, until one day, everything stopped.

the sun rose one morning, and all that awaited tim when he awoke was the light streaming in through the small window on his wall. his completely mudless wall. there was no distant giggling, no dancing figure, just the bare walls of his room. he recognised it as the regular kind of day that a regular kind of person would have. everything was quiet and normal and everything he hoped it would be. he wished so desperately for the day to stay as good as it was, but the voice in his head that always told him 'good can never last' was louder than usual.

when he got home from work, he reached into his back pocket to grab his keys, only to find that they were gone. he sighed, instead deciding to check whether or not, by some miracle of fate, he had left the door unlocked. the metal of the doorknob was alarmingly cold, but the door was unlocked, so he opened it anyway. it creaked loudly as he pulled it open. it was heavier than he remembered it being.

on the other side was a forest, darkened and thick with evergreen trees. shaking, he started to take a step inside, before a pair of cold, inhuman hands violently pushed him through the doorway and into a dense puddle of mud. as he got up and wiped the dirt from his eyes, he looked back to where he had come from, only to discover that the door was gone. the wind blew cold through the trees as his eyes darted around, desperately searching for some sort of solace, but found none. he heard the familiar giggling voice appear again, this time right behind him, but when he turned to look, there was nothing there. the voice continued to twirl around him from every direction, eventually beginning to speak.

"hey! over here!" the voice called. tim continued looking around frantically, trying to discover any sort of proof that this was just an absurd fever dream, a simple nightmare, but it seemed all too real.

"here i am!" said the voice, this time from his left, and when he looked, there was actually someone there. a figure that looked just as young as it's voice was standing just a few meters away from him. she looked to be about eight or nine years old, but the ratty, pink nightgown that she wore looked like it could be from the 50s. her coiled, brown hair stuck out all over, and her freckled face and bright smile made her look like the type of kid that could cheer anyone up. something about her was off, however. maybe it was the literal glow that she emitted, maybe it was the fact that she hadn't been there two seconds before, but looking at the situation practically, it was probably the huge gash that was barely visible beneath all of her hair, and the thick blood that oozed down her face from it.

"did you bring me here?" tim whispered, voice quivering.

"not necessarily, but i do know why you're here. and there's no need to sound so afraid! i won't bite!" she laughed. everything that she said seemed to be lighthearted and innocent, but her words were too mature to seem as though they were coming from the right mouth.

"why am i here then?"

"because mr. slenderman wanted you to come here. i just helped him to guide you,"

"who's 'mr. slenderman'? is he doing something to you?"

"no no no! mr slenderman is very nice! he'd never hurt me! and mr. slenderman is... well, he's very tall, and he has no face. he said you'd know him,"

tim gasped. "oh! i, uh... i do!"

"well that's good! he said that he has a deal for you. that he'd bring brian back if you became a proxy with us!"

"what the fu-" he caught himself before swearing. "i mean, what do you mean by proxy? and how do you know about brian?"

"well, i know things," she said.

"what do you mean you 'know things'?" tim replied, obviously questioning the credibility of a probably-dead elementary schooler.

"brian thomas died of spinal fracture after falling off of a ten-foot ledge due to a threatening encounter with a certain tim wright. seem familiar?" she casually whispered, seeming to have grown tired of explaining. tim froze. why in the hell had The Operator kidnapped and brainwashed a child into teleporting him into a forest where he'd most likely die? why was The Operator trying to make a deal with him after years of tormenting him? the fuck was going on?

"i'm sally, by the way! sally williams. follow me!" she said, and for some reason, tim didn't hesitate to follow her. she led him to the edge of a clearing before waving back at him and evaporating into the wind.

as he stepped into the clearing, he saw it. the creature. The Operator.