This is an attempt at a creepypasta story. I don't think it's all that scary, personally, but I'll just let you guys judge for yourself

I'm not much of a gamer. My gaming history consists mostly of Naughty Dog games and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. But recently I've become obsessed with another game. DC Universe Online.

Unfortunately for me I can only play this game once every other week or so, as I have to use my friend's computer. I would try to play it on my own, but my dinky netbook would probably melt.

I play this game constantly when I'm at my friend's house. I mostly love creating characters. It's become a bit of a problem, though. I've probably created two dozen characters since I started playing the game back in November. I can only have six at a time (because my friend needs the other slots for her characters), so I'm constantly going through and deleting characters in order to make new ones.

There's only one character, though, that I love enough to not get rid of. I gave her the name GrayRenegade (because I am a altogether uncreative person) and play with her all the time. She's the first and only character, so far, to reach level 30.

And to be honest, reaching level 30 is not the greatest thing. Sure, you can go into the war room and talk to your mentors, but you can no longer use the advantage of being a higher level to complete missions. Now everything you fight is level 30 too and, unless you have a party of six all doing the same mission, it's impossible to complete any.

But that's neither here nor there.

Usually when I play with Gray now I just have her go into the vaults, fly around aimlessly, and offer to help lower-level characters with their missions. If I'm feeling particularly courageous I'll do some Global Alerts or PVPs.

Quite recently I was doing a lazy thing. Just flying around Metropolis and looking for investigations or collections. I'd stopped looking for exobits because of a glitch in the game that wouldn't let me pick them up.

As I was flying over a building close to the China Town Police Station I noticed a shadow following me. It wasn't my character's shadow, hers was directly under her. This one belonged to someone else.

So I did what I usually do; I followed the shadow to it's source, hoping to find the character it was coming from.

You see, I have a habit of taking pictures of every character I see. I love the creativity a lot of people have with their character designs, so I love finding new ones to admire.

But this shadow didn't lead to anything.

I didn't think much of it at the time; DCOU was barely more than a year or so on the market and constantly being upgraded. Glitches were pretty much par for the course.

So I ignored the shadow and continued on my way.

Ten minutes later my hawk eyes had discovered three investigations and a couple more collections when I saw another shadow.

I followed this one to it's source again, but same as before there was nothing there.

Again, I ignored it.

By this time my friend, who had been of making dinner, was watching and helping me find things. She didn't mind it much either.

But half an hour later we'd found almost a dozen lonely shadows. At this point she told me to write a report about it. I didn't see the point, they were just shadows, but I did anyway.

The report basically ran like this: 'There are tons of random shadows popping up all over the map in Metropolis. They have no character source and there are no building they could belong to either.'

Like with any of my other glitch reports, I didn't receive a response.

So I continued playing. Decided to do a Global Alert. It took me almost and hour to get through, and by the time I had I'd forgotten about the shadows.

So I went back to my aimless flying. Occasionally I would challenge another hero to a duel or attack one of the villains.

But during one of these duels something caught my eye. It was a shadow in the corner of the screen. And it was moving with my character. I was a little confused, but not worried.

I ended up winning the duel. After bowing to my competitor I decided do go off and see if anyone needed help with any missions.

I was halfway through the tomorrow district when I noticed the same shadow had been following me. But that wasn't what concerned me.

No, what concerned me was the second shadow.

I looked at my friend and she shrugged. I sent another glitch report, but again heard nothing. So I continued playing, hoping the shadows would disappear by themselves.

No such luck.

In fact, it seemed as though the shadows were getting closer to my character. Feeling more than a little creeped out I decided to take a break from the game. I turned it off and me and my friend joined her family in the living room where we watched a marathon of How I Met Your Mother.

By the time we were done and back in her room I'd once again forgotten about the shadows. So I logged back into the game. I paused at the character selection screen. When I'd turned off the game the background had been of Oa.

Now it was something else. It was metal box. I could see the individual bolts that were holding the thing together. Strangely shaped pieced of metal haphazardly welded together to form an enclosure. There were dents in the metal, as though something had been beating against it, trying to escape. The shadows were eerie and moving and there were whispers coming out of the speakers.

Quickly, I selected Gray and got back to playing, putting the strange background out of my mind.

By the time it was midnight I'd helped four people with missions and completed another Alert. I landed Gray on a rooftop in Little Bohemia and decided it was time for a stretch break. When my attention was brought back to the game I let loose a little squeak. There on the screen were three shadows. And they were quickly converging on Gray.

At this point I thought to myself that they must be random events. Like the muggers or prophecy demons you find on the streets sometimes. I quickly moved Gray into action, jumping off the roof and flying away.

But the shadows still followed. They didn't leave the ground but they continued to pursue me. As I flew I saw a fourth and fifth shadow join them.

I was starting to panic a little bit. This didn't feel right at all. It felt distinctly wrong. And I could tell by the look on my friend's face that she thought the same.

As I passed over a building a loud screech ripped from the speakers and shot something out of yet another shadow and grabbed my character right out of the sky. It was so sudden and loud that I actually jumped and screamed in fright.

I immediately started fighting back against whatever was holding onto Gray, but then I noticed something very troubling.

My controls were no longer working.

Nothing I did reflected in Gray's actions.

As more shadows appeared and grabbed her all she did was struggle.

And scream.

The sound came quite clearly through the speakers and caused both me and my friend to jump.

I knew it was pointless but I continued to try and command Gray with the keyboard.

Nothing worked, she just struggled and screamed.

Until one of the shadows wrapped around her mouth.

They wrapped around her, completely grasping her arms and legs and holding her spread-eagled. Still she struggled, but it was pointless. Still she screamed, but it was barely audible through the gag.

Then I saw something I'd never seen in this game.

I saw fear in her eyes.

I saw terror.

I could do nothing but watch helplessly, eyes wide and a hand over my mouth.

I felt completely useless as one of the shadows rose above her, razor sharp.

I tried to look away, I didn't want to see what happened, but the sight held my attention much like a train wreck would.

The sound of ripping flesh and breaking bones echoed from the speakers as the tendril raced forwards and pierced her chest.

She and I screamed in tandem as blood, blood, flew from her body. I felt nauseous as it soaked the ground around her and splattered onto the screen.

I felt myself begin to cry as I could literally see the life flee her eyes. I choked on a sob when her head fell to the side, blood leaking from between her lips.

The shadows then began expanding, eating her now lifeless body in darkness, and I cried out. "No! Stop it! Please!"

But my pleas went unheeded and I was forced to watch as Gray's body slowly disappeared from sight.

The shadows were not done, however, as the began to expand outward from her body, of which only her head, face screwed up in agony, was still visible.

I backed away from the computer and into my friend, who I held onto for dear life, as the shadows devoured the screen until it was black.

The shadows then left us with one last taunt. A haunting laugh that chilled us to our very cores. A laugh that still pervades my dreams and leaves me shaking and in tears.

We stayed still for a minute, sitting in silent disbelief and horror. That couldn't have just happened... please, tell me it didn't happen! Please let me wake up from this nightmare!

Quickly I turned restarted the game, hoping beyond hope that it was just some stupid hacker prank or something.

But nay, as the character sheet loaded I realized it was short one character.

Gray was gone.

I turned to my friend and she looked at me and suddenly it was all I could do to breathe.

I shivered and shook in her arms as I cried. Gray, my very first and dearest character, was gone.

"All those deleted characters came back from the DCUO grave to haunt her!"
~RavensHiddenSoul