Chronicles of Creepypasta episode 1: The Page Thief.

The night air was crisp, chilly. Most trees had begun to shed their leaves and the ones who hadn't lacked any speck of green on them. All orange, gold, red, some even brown. The forest itself was pitch black, nothing but the moonlight above to just barely illuminate, and that's referring to the spots it did. The rest didn't have light anywhere to be seen.

However, almost rudely, that was broken, as well as the silence that filled the windy air as the light (although limited) from a flashlight cut through the darkness, panting following it and emitting from a burly man in his late 30's. A beard hung from his chin and was cut off an inch down forming at a point, a goatee more than anything. His eyes were bloodshot, bags hanging below them as the sign of an obviously under slept man who was no stranger to coffees trying to fill in the void of sleep.

He wore a black flannel jacket hiding a plaid buttoned up shirt underneath. His jeans had flecks of mud dotting along them, his boots weren't so lucky, however. The color of the black footwear was hidden behind brown, the underside of them possessing no trace of black whatsoever, covered in the aftermath of a violent rain storm from earlier that afternoon.

The man was clearly in a panic as he ran, constantly checking over his shoulder for some unforeseen predator, although his eyes never caught one. That didn't matter to him, however. As long as he was in that forest, he was in grave danger as far as he was concerned. Especially with the five pieces of white-lined paper scribbled over with bizarre, crude sketches currently resting under his arm.

He had just stolen the property of an immensely dangerous monster. A normal man at first glance, but looking closer, one could clearly see his grotesque features in all their horror. The first thing one would notice aside from his suit and tie was his unnatural height. Every single feature of his body except for his head was disturbingly tall, arms, legs, torso, all of it. Then one would look to his pale skin. Not just paler than the average person, no, chalk white skin. Finally, one's attention would be drawn to his face, or, lack-there-of. The "man" lacked any facial features. The only way for him to have any expression was his bizarre possession of eyelids. He had no eyes, but his flesh did seem to sink into his empty eye sockets, eyelids hidden underneath the skin. No one would blame you for missing his deathly thin frame.

This monster was the reason why the forest was blocked off from the average visitor, special personnel being the only ones allowed there. They called him, the Slenderman.

The five pages the man was running with belonged to the Slenderman. They weren't all of the pages, no, there were eight in total. Right now the man was in search of every last one of them. He had to come at night, of course. Too many people guarding the premises during the day. But of course, this was a bad idea. The creature actually only came out at night. He vanished during the day time, unbeknownst to all the guards. The Slenderman thrived at night. He could see inhumanly well, his vision (which he surprisingly had) could cut through the dark of night like paper.

There was a rumor going around. A legend, actually, that led to this man entering woods this dangerous at night. They say that the pages Slenderman guards are missing pieces of a journal. If all the pages are gathered and put back in their proper place, that they gain some sort of mystic power strong enough to kill the Slenderman once and for all.

But the man only had five, not possessing a clue as to where the other three were, and the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. The man (secretly revealed) frowned at this. The guards and rangers would be returning soon, so he had to leave, now.

The man obliged to the nonexistent entity telling him to leave. Within minutes, he was gone, running to his neighborhood and then rushing into his house, fearfully slamming and locking the door behind him.

However, he didn't have a thing to worry about. Slenderman was staring at him from behind a tree as he ran. His heart was actually pounding, his mind racing with thoughts, "Five pages, gone, in one night. He'll be back, I know he will. He wasn't far from the sixth page when he left. Why can't I bring them back with me?" He sighed heavily. Turning around and heading far deeper in the woods than practically anybody had tread aside from the wildlife.

Eventually he reached an innocuous if oddly located shack. It was no bigger than an outhouse and was even less well-crafted. The walls were formed of cracked, moldy cement. The roof a rusted, large, paper thin metal panel that wasn't even attached properly. The door was wooden, windowless. There was a lock beneath the brass doorknob. Slenderman reached into his back pocket and lazily pulled out an unusually lengthy key, his name imprinted into the side.

Slenderman casually inserted the key into the lock and twisted it, resulting in a click he was all too familiar with. The door swung outward and he ducked his head, and upper back, in order to fit through the doorway not built for his immensely tall frame.

The shack wasn't as empty as one would expect. The one thing it held was a staircase leading down into a hallway. Thankfully as Slenderman descended he was aloud to stand upright once more, the height of the ceiling far more forgiving on his own.

The hall itself was lengthy, dim, florescent lights connected to the ceiling, very much prone to going out every now and again. Slenderman walked through the stone corridor, his mind still fearful of what would happen if that man were to return and claim the three remaining pages. Of course, he was incredibly tired as well, planning to get a long night's sleep. Thankfully for him, the next day was a Saturday, meaning that for the next two days someone else would be filling in his shoes. Thoughts of whoever it was covering his position catching and snuffing out the page thief brought him comfort.

The four thick, black tendrils that could sprout out of his back and extend at will now massaging his aching shoulders, sour from crouching so much for door frames.

He would teleport a few feet ahead to get to the other end of the hallway faster, but he was exhausted, having no energy to do so. The end of the hallway was already fast approaching, anyway. There would be no need to teleport at this point. Sure enough, the hallway came to an abrupt stop at a staircase nearly identical to the previous one.

Slenderman casually ascended it, hunching over once more, and unlocked the door in front of him. Stepping through, Slenderman emerged in an impossible location, the alleyway of a city. Geologically impossible, there was no city for miles. But, that was in the human world. This world was far different. A realm where the darkest of monsters could become a reality, the social norm, even.

It was mostly desert, barren and massive. However, there were two massive cities in the dead center. Lightless City, one of infinite darkness, eyeless children, and hideous monsters lurking the streets. This was not the city Slenderman currently resided in. No, his city was far greater and impressive. It didn't have the massive landmarks and lights like New York, but it's size was still awe inspiring. It was about the size of New York, after all.

This city was officially named after its lord and founder, Zalgo, bearing the name Zalgopolis, but most simply reffer to it as Creepypasta City. Whenever someone wrote a creepypasta into existence and posted it online, that it where it would be. The air filled with fog during the day, and starless, red skies filled the night.

Slenderman was considered a rather popular figure there, and one of the cities most beloved inhabitants due to his friendly and somewhat wise disposition. His British accent to compliment his deep, stern voice helped as well.

As Slenderman walked through the alleyway, he took a sharp turn to the left and emerged out onto his street. The city had a seemingly endless population count. Zalgo's solution? Every citizen in the city shared an apartment with another. Usually the pairings have something in common with each other, sometimes not.

In Slenderman's eyes, he and his roommate were one of those exceptions. Although he did rather like his roommate (even if he could get on his nerves... a lot...) To some however, they did have one major characteristic in common.

As Slenderman approached the door to his apartment block, opening it up, he stepped into the lavish yet still quaint lobby. It housed a small chandelier above an equally small table in the center of the room. To the right was a front desk, an elderly woman with an axe lodged into her back was waiting behind it with a smile on her face, one that widened the minute she spotted Slenderman standing in the doorway, hunched over as usual.

"Oh hello there, Slendy, how are you this evening?" she asked sweetly. Judging by the expression on his eyes, however, she could tell his answer would be negative, "*Sigh* Not good, Margaret. Some schmuck got five pages, and escaped..." he said grimly. Margaret looked at him sympathetically, "Oh, no! I'm so sorry about that. Well... I'm sure that whoever takes over for you over the weekend will fix that right up, and whoever took those papers of yours," she assured him darkly.

Slenderman nodded as he approached her, "I'm sure you're right," he said, before accepting his apartment key from her in exchange for his portal key. Wearily, he headed up the wide stairway leading to the second floor. Near the end of the hall was his room, number 224.

Slenderman approached it and fumbled with the lock for a brief moment before pushing the door open and entering his apartment. It was comprised of five rooms. A basic living room with a couch, rug, and flat-screen TV resting on a stand in the center. To the right there was a small little pocket that made up the kitchen, the left housed the large bathroom, and the back wall housed the door to the single bedroom, which had a smaller bathroom inside of it.

To Slenderman's left there was a small table, another key resting on top of it to inform him that his roommate was home. Slenderman locked the door behind him and placed the key on the same table, heading into his bedroom where his roommate was playing with his treasured knife on his bed.

The man before him was just barely 21. Even more surprising was that he was human. Although some would say just barely. He bore a white hoodie dotted with bloodstains of all different sizes. The boy had skin just as pale as the Slenderman himself, having been branded permanently with bleach and alcohol. His eyes were wide, unable to close, lacking eyelids. There were dark circles around his eyes where the fire he used to burn them off had singed. Contrasting this bizarre man's white appearance was the wide smile on his face, lips cut to form one that would never deplete. Then there was this man's hair. Raven black, having been (at first) burned and robbed of its brown hue, although when the roots began to grow back the boy found that he had grown far too attached to his black hair, and so he had been dyeing it to this day.

Jeffery Woods was his true name, but most referred to him as the infamous Jeff the Killer. The psychotic man before Slenderman was on America's top ten most wanted list, having brutally slaughtered over 200 innocent people in their family homes, displaying inhuman agility and martial arts skills despite never having any parkour training or martial arts lessons in his life. Jeff, around five years ago, had gone crazy during a fight with a vicious gang of bullies, and was given his skin and hair by one of them, Keith, he believed. After leaving the hospital he had murdered his parents after his mother had told his father to get a gun on him, and had then proceeded to slink into his brother's room, and had stabbed him in the side of his torso until he passed out, fleeing from their family home and beginning his murderous rampage.

Thankfully his brother, Liu, had survived and was currently residing in his old home. Surprisingly he still loved his brother (as did Jeff him), and gladly let Jeff in on the occasional visit. Though only around two years ago had a mysterious creature approached Jeff with the prospect of an apartment in Creepypasta City, one he gladly accepted.

Jeff turned his head to face his roommate and currently best friend and smiled, "Oh hey Slendy! How was work, murder anybody today?" the question excited Jeff. Even the mere recounting of a grizzly slaughtering perked up his mood. Slenderman shook his head sadly, "Nope, the exact opposite actually," he flopped onto his bed, slipping his loafers off with his feet as he stared at the ceiling. "Actually, some ass-hat ran off with five pages," he recounted bitterly.

Jeff stared at him, "Holy shit, five?" Slenderman nodded, "Yep, hope to God the guy takin' over for me this weekend can catch that son of a bitch. Snuff the life outta him, sounds about right," he thought aloud, Jeff nodded, "Damn straight," he said bluntly.

Slenderman looked over at his desk clock, which read "6:30PM". His stomach suddenly grumbled, so after filling it with its desired dinner, he disappeared into the closet separating his and Jeff's bed and slipped into some more casual clothes, one he never dared wear outside of his apartment, and flopped onto his bed, the one closest to the window peering outside, and turned on the TV, Jeff surfing the deep web on a table in the corner of the room.

The next morning Slenderman and Jeff found themselves heading down to the local coffee shop. Taking their seat after getting their hot beverages, Jeff looked around and noticed the people around him, neighbors, to be precise. He noticed good friends of his and Slenderman's like Eyeless Jack and Laughing Jack sitting nearby. He also saw Suicide Mouse with his roommate Nega-Mickey in a corner of the shop. Although the next person Jeff scanned his eyes over he had to immediately look away from, his face getting hot as he realized who it was.

There, sitting at a far end of the Coffee Shop was a woman with skin as white as his, a black dress, and a mask with jet black eyes was Jane the Killer. Around five years ago, that same night, Jeff had killed his parents, there was a girl there just as concerned about his safety and well being as his brother with her parents. Jane was that girl. Jeff had murdered her parents and disfigured her face much the same way he had his, all in the name of what at the time he had thought as making her "beautiful". Naturally, she loathed him ever since. Spending the next couple of years trying to hunt him down, but she had lost her chance when both her and Jeff were accepted into Creepypasta City. Of course, murdering any of its inhabitants was punishable by law, and would lead to exile out into the human world.

Despite this chance being lost, Jane generally enjoyed her new life as a citizen of the city, especially since she looked over her roommate, a thirteen year old girl named Sally. She was murdered by her uncle and had a burning desire for revenge as a ghost, wearing pink rags, face bloody, and almost always clutching a teddy bear. Sally had been resurrected upon being accepted into the city, however, and over the course of looking after her Jane had grown to love Sally like a daughter. Said girl was now ravenously chomping down on a large, glazed doughnut.

Jeff did have some regrets about his actions to Jane, especially since, despite their bad blood, he did think she was rather pretty, and he like her, at least a little bit.

Thankfully Jane hadn't noticed Jeff's presence and went on with her conversation with Sally about how her classes at the school she went to were going.

"Good," Sally said quietly, naturally a shy girl. "I met two really cool boys a while back, one of them was this kid named Ben, he was wearing a tunic and leather boots for some reason, something about being from a Zelda game, which I kinda know of. Oh! And a kid named , though we just call him Sonic. He's a blue, spiky hedgehog who's got red and black eyes, kinda like Ben. Uh, I'm going over to Sonic's apartment with Ben tomorrow..." she explained.

Jane smiled from behind her mask, "Oh that's nice, sweety, they sound friendly, I'd love to meet them," Jane told Sally, to which she nodded enthusiastically.

Slenderman was looking at the two and smiling (as much as he could when he lacked a mouth, of course). "Heh, that's cute," he chuckled over to Jeff, who nervously nodded, refusing to look up as he sipped down his coffee uneasily.

Later the two were walking back down to the apartment when Jeff looked over at a news post and stopped short, tugging at the back of Slenderman's shirt like a little child, "What?" Slenderman groaned, turning around to see Jeff staring at the headline on the news. Slenderman kneeled down and hunched to get a good look at it before freezing solid.

"MAN GUARDING PAGES IN WOODS FOUND DEAD BY FELLOW CITIZEN, INVESTIGATION BEING HELD"

"Oh my God..." Slenderman was practically speechless. Jeff was just as shocked as he was. Slenderman shook his head, inserting a quarter and shakily removing the newspaper from its plastic prison. Walking along the street, Slenderman read the newspaper feverishly, Jeff hopping up in vain attempts to catch glimpses of the text.

The article stated that the victim had been riddled with bullets, presumably from a pistol. They were found near the previous location of the now missing sixth page. Two pages and a spine away from Slenderman's very kryptonite. "Fuck!" he spat suddenly, slamming the newspaper onto the concrete below, allowing Jeff to quickly swoop it up and sink his teeth into the article, soaking up every word like a white and red spotted sponge.

Back at the apartment, Slenderman was on the verge of panicking, "Son of a bitch, I can't believe that asshole pumped lead into my understudy! Poor bastard probably would've made a good proxy, too..." Jeff raised an eyebrow at this, "You haven't had a proxy since... oh I don't know... before you even met me, even," he said. Slenderman gave him a look, "Not the time, Jeff," he grumbled.

"Well, at least now we have investigators working on it, that bastard'll never get past them now. And sooner than later, his ass is grass," Slenderman couldn't help but grin at this thought, although not long before it faded.

Sunday was uneventful, the thief wasn't caught, although the last two pages were still remaining. On Monday, Slenderman was due back to work, the investigation was still going, and the pages were thankfully being guarded by more than himself, but Slenderman still needed to do his job, one he was more than eager to do.

As he and Jeff headed out through the shack, Jeff left Slenderman's side to go on his murderous rampage and corpse looting through the neighborhood, Slenderman himself stayed and found himself stalking the edge of the forest, paranoid as to what might happen if he wasn't on high alert the whole night.

So far, nothing had happened, there had been no activity even from other thrill-seekers or page-seekers alike. Strangely enough Slenderman began to get the feeling that he had given up. Of course, that wasn't the case.

About three hours into the hunt, Slenderman heard it. Shouting off in the distance, around the location of one of the pages and a group of investigators. Slenderman was quick to the scene, as more screams and cries began erupting from the group, more panicked, something was clearly attacking them. That was odd, however, as if it were that page thief, they should be able to take him out no problem, even if he was armed.

But, then he heard gunshots. Slenderman expected that, he knew that bastard was in possession of a pistol at the very least. However, listening a bit more intently as well as drawing nearer to the scene, he could clearly hear that there was more than one gun being fired. Hell, more than 2 guns being fired. The thief was working with others.

Now Slenderman was panicked, "Jesus, there's more than one!? Shit, sounds like they're all armed, too. How the Hell am I supposed to take them out when they have guns!?" he thought.

As more bullets ripped through the air in the distance, Slenderman clearly heard the number of men working on the case shrinking, they were all being gunned down mercilessly. Slenderman was teleporting as far ahead as he could now, frantic to try and reach the page in time, which he was surprised wasn't riddled with bullets yet, if it even was still in tact.

Finally, Slenderman burst out into the clearing, a large, abandoned and rusty pickup truck in the center, baby-blue paint chipping off. On the side of it, there it was. A page with the words "NO NO NO" scribbled on them crudely.

The scene surrounding Slenderman, however, was far from normal. It was a complete bloodbath, bodies of investigators lining the dirt, not one of them wasn't covered in gunshot wounds, casings from bullets were scattered all around them.

To Slenerman's left were the culprits. Four people (including the thief himself) around the thief's age were standing near the edge of the clearing, pistols outstretched in their arms, smoke steadily rising up from the barrels now resembling dragon nostrils.

To the far left there was a woman, long hair and hipster glasses, she was wearing just about the same clothes as everybody else in the group. Next to her was the original thief, next to him was a man in his late 30's with a much larger beard complimented by a mustache, and next to him was the youngest in the group, a boy in his late 20's. Despite his age however, he seemed to be the most smug and confident in the whole group. Though he seemed like the type of confident where he knew that he could always get his way, not just thought.

Of course, the minute Slenderman entered the field, their guns were trained on him. Immediately Slenderman mad a quick lunge and teleported to the back of the pickup truck, which was facing away from the young gunmen. Bullets spun through the air at lightning speed.

Quickly he clamberd out of his hiding spot and slunk back into the forest, watching helplessly as the girl ripped the seventh page from its place. Quickly Slenderman ran desperately to the location of the last page, not a clue as how he was supposed to protect if from four people with guns.

He realized that there was still a crew protecting it, and that they could still stop them if they were warned in time. But it was then that he remembered the location of the last page, it was in the middle of a large, stone tunnel. No place to hide if they showed up. If the thieves surrounded them, two on one side, two on the other, and no place to run.

He had to hurry.

Thankfully, there was no one there but the investigators, who were now staring at him, "What the Hell's goin' on Slenderman?! We can here fuckin' gun fire from all the way over here!" one of them shouted. "There are four of them and they all have guns, pistols. They got the seventh page and are fast approaching, we need to be on high alert and make sure they don't surround us. By now they know that there are people guarding the pages," Slenderman explained hurriedly, leaving the investigators speechless.

"Goddamn... Men! We need to guard both ends of the tunnel! Let Slenderman be in charge of the page! We can let these bastards get away! They get the page and kill Slenderman, they get his key to the city as well!" he cried. Despite this, they already had access to several keys to the city with the men they'd killed earlier, but with Slenderman, they would notice it.

Slenderman stood in front of the page, tendrils splayed out against the wall, the rest of his body practically pressing against the wall as well.

For a while nothing happened, the only sound being everyone's thick, heavy breathing. But it wasn't long before something breached the darkness of the night. Flashlights, a whole group of them, marching together in a cultish manner, the metal on their pistols resting in their other hand flashing, glinting in the darkness. Slenderman was ready, hugging himself closer to the page, blocking it with every fiber of his being.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* the first three bullets tore through the air, all Hell breaking loose as the guards rushed towards the group, several of them were shot down quickly, one of them managing to take out the man with the large beard, only for multiple bullets to be spat out of his gun, tearing through the skin of the guard, he was dead before he hit the reddened grass with a soft *thud*.

The girl was next, stabbed through the neck by the massive claw of one of the guards, he was shot down too by the smug one, who had dodged their swats and swings with ease, the thief seemed to have similar agility, jumping about and shooting the guards.

The last of them managed to strike the two remaining thieves in one way, stabbing the smug one in his right leg before taking a bullet to his head, blood and viscera splattering the ground before being hidden underneath his lifeless corpse.

There was only them and Slenderman now. He was looking at them in shock. They had taken out every last investigator with dinky little pistols, not even shotguns or uzis. No, pistols had massacred ten officers of the law. Granted they were unarmed, but that was beside the point.

Now, there was absolutely nothing between them and Slenderman. The two remaining main slowly approached him, guns trained at his suit.

"Move. Now," the older one instructed bluntly. Slenderman shook his head, "Go to Hell," he spat. Of course, the two were taken aback by this, "Y-you talk!?" the older one spat. The smug one smiled suddenly, "Heh, should've known this sooner. Who were those freaks back there that killed our friends? Proxies, maybe?" he asked.

Slenderman quickly nodded, donning the same confident demeanor, "Yes, they were, and I don't very much appreciate you taking out my men," he said calmly, "Now get the Hell out of my forest and I won't mark you as my new proxies, I'll simply kill you instead, and if you knew what being a proxy is like, you'd definitely choose death," he threatened, even though being a proxy wasn't nearly as awful as he made it out to be (not that it was any fun, either).

The older one scoffed, "Oh please, you're outnumbered, we have the book at our house, you don't have a choice," he laughed. It was then that the smug one slugged him in the arm, shocked, "You dumbass! Why the fuck did you just tell him that!?" he hissed through gritted teeth. It was too late for covering up his mistake, however, as Slenderman teleported to the other side of the tunnel, leaving the page unguarded. He pressed the side of his head to the tunnel, the page precisely on the other side.

He heard the thieves remove the page from its place, that was when he acted upon his chance, teleporting behind the two, they're torsos were pierced by his tendrils within seconds, their hearts ripped in two. They died instantly.

Slenderman let out a sigh of relief, placing the page back in its proper place. He stepped over to the body pile, giving the fallen men a moment of silence before grabbing the seventh page from the dead girl, heading back to the truck and putting that page back on the side of the truck. It was then that Slenderman returned to the tunnel and knelt down by the original thief's corpse, he reached into his pockets and eventually located his wallet.

Slenderman sifted through it, groping about for any piece of information that would tell him the man's address. Finally he plucked out a scrap of paper, personal info jotted down on it, presumably the smug one's info. He scanned the address on it and placed it into his pocket, leaving the forest to locate the address.

It wasn't long before Slenderman found the address, 19, Quarter Drive. He didn't bother trying to be quiet. Slenderman's tendril shot out, smashing the sliding glass window. He hunched over and slunk inside. The whole house was a mess. Papers scattered across the floor, Coke and Pepsi cans tipped on their sides as well as cups of coffee from the local Dunkin' Donuts. On the floor there were three or four laptops, their cords seemed to overlap and struggle to reach their spot in the outlet in a maze-like tangle.

Slenderman ignored this. All he was interested in was the stack of crudely drawn pages on the counter. Slenderman walked over to it and placed them under his arm. With all the pages under his watch, Slenderman's work was done.

Slenderman groaned as he lumbered into his apartment. Jeff was surfing the deep web, he was in the process of zipping up his pants and clicking off the snuff film he was watching. Slenderman wretched, "You really need to adopt some less, specific, fetishes," he told the pale twenty-one year old, who rolled his eyes at this. "I take it you caught that murderous asswipe?" Jeff prodded.

Slenderman then took a deep breath and proceeded to relate to him all that had just happened to him throughout the night in the human world. Jeff was left with his mouth agape, "Holy shit! No fuckin' way! You tell anybody yet?" he asked excitedly. Slenderman nodded, "Of course! I informed the cleanup crew about the bodies and they're well on it," he said. Jeff shrugged, "Well, damn. Anything like this happen to you before?" he asked. Slenderman looked over to his clueless roommate and nodded, "Welcome to Creepypasta City, kid. You have no idea what kind of crap happens here. Though trust me, in due time you will, in due time..."

Author's Note: Sorry I've been out so long guys, been having computer troubles lately and I couldn't borrow my friend's computer again, so I had sort that crap out. Finally though I'm able to get something to you guys while I work on the next chapter to Town of Lost Spirits and the SpongeBob Movie Remake (which I haven't updated in a couple of months actually... Anywho, in the spirit of October I decided to write this up, the very first story in Chronicles of Creepypasta City, an idea I've been kicking around even before I started writing on this site. It's pretty self explanatory. Unfortunately since their's no Creepypasta section in misc. this area I've selected will have to do. Hopefully it gets decent view traffic... Oh, and yes I do plan on making this a large series with other Creepypastas getting involved. Although I will say this, a lot of the seriousness and subtlety of the Creepypastas that I will be featuring during this series will not be present here. This is a more fun, action-esque approach I am taking here. Just imagine Regular Show does Creepypasta minus a good chunk of the humor (though this won't be devoid of lighter moments I assure you).