The forest was empty, sounding mute to the point that it scared her greatly. "Jeez," (Y/N) started with a sigh, "I came here as a joke to fangirl, I didn't expect it to be so quiet..."
(Y/N) had always been big on Creepypasta ever since she found it. Sure, there were periods where she wouldn't talk about it or go out of her way to look for it, but once it was brought up in some way or another to her again, she got invested deeply. She knew that none of them were real, she knew that none of them lived in a mansion together, she knew that none of them would stop and gaze at her lovingly. No. She knew that if she ever saw them in real life, she would be either dead on the spot, or pretty soon after. However, none of this stopped her from enjoying it and loving the characters. Jeff the Killer, in his un-romanticized, known shitty JPEG style, along with the Rake, were the only two that truly scared her. The others were just weird. (Y/N) had seen the Marble Hornet series four, maybe five times in the past, had Masky cosplay, and even managed to spend almost all of her savings bidding on the genuine, real-life Masky Mask from season three of Marble Hornets. She was a huge fan, and it didn't stop at just that, today, she was officially standing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The place they filmed Marble Hornets.
She had been taking what she called "a Nerd Tour". This is where she would go all around Canada and the US visiting different sites or places where people filmed, or places like Vulcan, Alberta, where they have a Star Trek tourist stop.
Either way, here she was at her third stop, ready to explore the filming places and hunt for some of the more prominent areas of filming. The red tower, the house from entries #16, #18 and #23, along with totheark's video, "Addition" and more. The Hotel itself that Jay stayed at is currently no longer a hotel. Where the hotel stood, was now a cell phone shop, "Tuscaloosa Wireless" or something, so Motel Six it is! Right near the cell phone shop. Fast forward now, past all of her signings into the hotel and where she was, how she got there, (Y/N) now stands in the middle of "Oak Mountain State Park", where the red tower was. This is closer near Hoover, outside of Tuscaloosa.
This is where the silence dwells. Where there are no crickets, birds, or any other sign of life. Just (Y/N).
She walked out into the clearing, finally outside of all the dreadfully tall and familiar trees. There, on the other side of the clearing, stood the red tower in all of its glory. Upon further inspection of the sides of it, the white Operators Symbol still sat carved into the tower. Slowly but surely (Y/N) crept around it, inspecting it with everything that she could. She took photos and jotted down notes. Finally finished exploring the outside, (Y/N) took a look inside. A few things had been moved around since the videos were made, no doubt it was either stupid people from around the area messing around or more Marble Hornets fans being nerds like she was. Either way, they were all stupid for being inside of a small space that could seemingly fall apart at any moment.
Despite the broken ladder, courtesy of Jay, (Y/N) still managed to safely climb up the tower and explore. To her surprise, there, in the very same spot it was before, sat a silver, metal case. Practically identical to the one that Jay had found in entry #21. Practically is the word to be used here as the only real difference that she could tell that there was, was a few more scratches and scrapes. In other words, it was simply even more beaten up than it originally was. Slightly scared and freaked out in general by what was happening (Y/N) released a heavy sigh as she placed the container in her hoodie pocket and finally took a peek over the edge of the tower, nearly slipping and falling as she covered her mouth with her right hand in horror.
There, standing on the other side of the clearing, right where she had just come from moments before, was a man that appeared terrifyingly similar to Tim Wright, or as he appeared now, Masky. Nearly jumping out of her skin as she stared at the man across the field (Y/N) scrambled down the tower and rushed back outside and around until she was staring directly at the spot that the man once was. Seeing the fact that he was gone scared (Y/N) even more than she already was. She went from unsettled to terrified faster than she ever thought that she would ever have to. (Y/N) had fallen almost as silent as the forest around her, the only sound was her heavy breathing as she darted in the very same direction she came from, that the man had been sighted, and rushed out of the park as swiftly as she possibly could. (Y/N) wasn't a very fit person, so she had never run that fast in her life. It was as if something was chasing her and her life depended on it. The adrenaline rush was more than she feared her body could take.
As (Y/N) rushed back into her hotel room she ripped out the metal container and grasped it tightly in her hands."He can't be real, he isn't real, they are fake, fake, you've MET THE REAL TIM BEFORE, (Y/N)! AND THAT IS NOT HIM!" With every word (Y/N) only got louder, finally shutting up just before she made her way into the hotel, swiftly darting up the stairs and into her room. Once she was there, knowing in the back of her mind that if in one in a million chance that it was honestly Tim Wright back there, that she was as good as dead. It meant somehow, she had caught the attention of Slenderman, and somehow, he had gotten Tim. This also meant that there truly was no escape.
Finally recovering her breaths, (Y/N) made her way over to her bed, stopping dead in her tracks. All she did was stare, just stare, for maybe six or seven minutes before finally moving once more and grasping the tape player in her hands, heart racing faster than she would like for it to. "Someone was in here." (Y/N) said as her eyes darted around the room like a flickering flame dances on a candle in the wind. "Or is here." Voice practically quivering she placed the player back down and looked at the metal container in her right hand. Opening it slowly she pulled out the tape that had "Watch me." written on the back. With a shaky, heavy sigh, (Y/N) set up the player and placed the tape inside, watching the film dance across the screen.
Disturbing images flashed across the screen, images that were never shown in Marble Hornets. None of the downloadable DVDs had it, none of the hard copy DVDs had it, none of the original YouTube videos had it. (Y/N), let alone anybody else, had never seen this video before. This was a new film, and the very thought of that scared the shit out of her. Masky glitched across the screen in an unknown area, somewhere deep within a forest was a pretty easy guess to make.
Certain scenes were clearer, some that were completely blocked out one way or another, and some that were in between. Instead of some cliché creepy music in the background, or clear silence like the park, it displayed the unusual yet familiar sounds that you could hear so often during the Marble Hornets videos. Masky seemed to be a recurring feature in the video and soon words flashing across the screen in an odd pattern seemed to alert (Y/N) even more as she realized that in the background of certain random scenes of Masky, was her in some form or another. Her walking, her eating, her driving, her car, her hotel room, her sleeping. The thing that creeped her out the most was the fact that there, sitting over a very faint picture that she had to look closer than comfort should have allowed, were the words, "We've been waiting." and "Glad you could make it."
(Y/N) let out a soft quiver as a few tears slipped down her face. The image that the words were displayed over was her sitting at home in her room. She was just reading a book of some kind snuggled up in a blanket with what looked like some snacks. Despite its darkness, there was no way that it wasn't her in her house. It was absolute, and they had been expecting her.
Although (Y/N) still didn't want to admit to any of this being real she knew that she would have to face it sooner or later and decided to attempt to come to terms with it now versus an attempt to do it later. Why they had suddenly chosen her out of all the other people in the world she didn't know, the only thing that she was sure of was the fact that her life was in danger and she needed to back out now before anything more could happen, no matter what the cost.
"Excuse me, miss?" A soft female voice could be heard from the other side of her hotel room door following a gentle knock as (Y/N) walked over and opened it. "I'm just room service checking up on you, are you alright? Is there anything that you might be needing for the night?" (Y/N) sighed, realizing her mistake of signing in for the whole weekend. She had already been here two nights and tonight was supposed to be her last. I'm probably fucked anyway, what's one more night, right? (Y/N) mentally asked herself as she looked at the seemingly innocent girl in front of her. "I should be okay, thank you. But I will be leaving early in the morning." The girl nodded and told her okay along with a simple "Just call us if you need anything, alright?" and (Y/N) closed the door once more, making sure to head straight for her camera bag.
"This should do!" (Y/N) told herself as she forced a grin to form upon her face. Thinking of just totally how well it turned out for Alex and Jay when they filmed themselves (Y/N) thought that it would be a perfect fucking stellar idea to film herself whilst she stayed there as well. Staring at herself in the camera she allowed for a small heavy sigh to escape from between her lips as she made sure that it was running. "There we are." She began as she fixed her hoodie slightly. "My name is (Y/N) (L/N) and I am at Motel Six in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I discovered a tape in Oak Mountain State park earlier today and came back to my hotel room to find a player sitting on my bed. This is documentation of my sleep so I may have evidence that I'm not insane if I see something and/or there is some knowledge on where I was before I disappeared or turned up dead somewhere."
Finishing up with a simple "Goodnight." (Y/N) kept the lights on and went to bed, unable to fall asleep for around three hours.
Looking back on them now she realized that she probably should have just taken off and rushed back to her parents, to the rest of her family, but she didn't.
It was just like Jay, only slightly different. Since there was no dresser he simply sat on the edge of the bed staring at the camera or on the other side of the room staring at her. The biggest similarity between her and Jay's experiences with him was the fact that he stared into the camera. At one point his body language was almost hesitant as he went from the other side of the room to stand right beside her bed, just staring down at her, a reluctant hand reaching out to, but never touching her. The notion confused and terrified her when she saw it, but she was trying not to care.
Five a.m. the next morning she awoke.