The Exiled Tape of Lina Inverse

A Creepypasta story written by gonzotheanime

READ THIS NOTE! IT IS VITAL!

THIS STORY IS A WORK OF FICTION! SLAYERS HAS TOO GOOD A REPUTATION TO BE TARNISHED BY A RUMOR THAT STARTED IN THIS *FAKE* SUPERNATURAL STORY! NOTHING LIKE THIS EVER EXISTED!

Get it? Got it? Good. Moving on!

Being an anime fanatic, I'm always excited when something appears that really stimulates my fandom. Slayers recently came up as one of the funniest and most creative of all the anime I've encountered next to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Each episode was a nice breath of fresh hilarity and adventure. And I always get a kick out of the main girl, the red-headed sorceress Lina.

I was gonna make an anime music video on her after I biked my 10-mile route home, when along the highway I encountered a VHS tape. It was sorta your typical TV recording cassette tape. The label was written in black and red, and in Japanese, but a group of kanji letters bore resemblance to the Slayers TV title cards. Or so I thought initially.

I did confirm with one of the episodes of the 1990's series. It was a Slayers tape! But I don't get the other letters.

I sent an image to a friend on a photo sharing site of the tape's label the next day I got on. After a while, I was sent this response:

"Don't watch that tape!"

I replied, "What's it say?"

"black- Slayers test episode. Red- Dispose ASAP! How the hell did you get it?"

I told them how I found it.

"You should toss it like RIGHT NOW! I don't think we're dealing with the same Slayers as we know!"

I passed it as some sort of joke. Besides, it might've been a blank tape with nothing on it or it might've been over-recorded with someone's airing of Oprah and they didn't label it.

It was a good thing I still have a TV, VCR, and assorted equipment to view this tape. My mother wouldn't let me use the others as they are for her own selfish needs.

I decided to watch it when I stayed home Saturday around noon. It was overcast, so my family went shopping while I watched the house for them. Since the tape was in slightly poor condition, I downloaded and printed a set of instructions of how to clean and restore video cassettes the day before and with my family gone, used the assorted materials to clean it. It didn't take long, amazingly, and when I popped it in, it began to play with a black screen. I was happy it was playing fine.

Some more Japanese characters popped up on the screen with a timecode on the bottom of the screen. There wasn't any opening to indicate which season we're dealing with. Then it showed the series' main cast. Since it was just Lina, Goury, Zelgadis, and Amelia, I figured it was from the first two seasons. The artwork was kinda similar, however it had a bit more realism depicted. Way too much.

About 13 seconds of the beginning was the crew walking through the woods. All of a sudden, Lina stopped, and she had this scared look on her face. She suddenly grabbed her face and covered her mouth, which began spewing blood. The others are speaking to her, but I couldn't understand, as it was in Japanese, again, and it was kinda distorted as the tape was slightly warped for a bit (I couldn't do anything about that.)

She landed on the ground convulsing, with a frightened look on her face. It look so real, I swore she was really scared of whatever is happening to her.

The camera zoomed in on her and then faded to black. It then faded in to her in bed, looking extremely pale and asleep. At the foot of this bed was Amelia and Zelgadis. She was crying hysterically in the chimera's arms. I wasn't able to make out a hint of what she said. Also crying, in the corner of the room was Goury. I did make out his cries of "Lina!" I feared the worst.

It was a grave assumption that Lina just died. There wasn't any indication of how it exactly went, but it was official when she was carted to a cemetery in the next scene. That scene ended with her friends and the undertaker piling the dirt onto Lina's corpse, with another fade out.

A glitch occurred and now the grave is shown again. It's night. And in the mist and fog, a realistic, decaying hand pushed out while a disturbing cord played.

It then cut to Amelia in bed, sleepless over the loss of her mentor and friend. Hovering over her was a pair of red, glowing eyes. I thought it'll be cue for comedy relief. Wrong.

A pair of gruesome teeth flashed and Amelia cried out in horror. That same hand as before grabbed her, and before I knew it, Amelia was being torn apart, limb from limb, and the art style was scarily detailed. Down to the sickening ripping of muscle tissue, the tears mixed with the blood on Amelia's face, and (this was a completely horrible sight) a decaying face of Lina Inverse, gnawing on Amelia's flesh, with hollowed eye sockets and an inhuman gasp.

I was in horror! Stunned horror! This wasn't Slayers at all! This wasn't the Lina Inverse I knew and loved!

When she was finished with Amelia, the scene panned to a whole body image. I swore she was looking at me through the TV screen, saying words I can't understand. I rushed to turn it off, but to no avail! I tried to stop the tape, but it didn't work! When I went behind the VCR to try to unhook the cables, I screamed when I felt a cold, wet hand on my left ankle!

I sprang back to the other side of the room, screaming and panicking like I was about to die. I looked back and the screen became static snow.

I then glanced at my left ankle. The pant leg had a bloody handprint on it.

I hurriedly ripped the pants off, and after changing into a new pants and underwear, I tried to removed the tape. I was glad it came out now.

I took the pants straight to the dumpster, and took the tape to my father's garage. With the biggest hammer I could find, I smashed the tape into bits.

I still admit I like Slayers despite that, but I know for certain that particular tape won't see another VCR again. And I still fear, that someday, someone will think this up with innocent intentions and bring that horrible version of the sorcery genius Lina Inverse onto the screen.