cryptidcreeper

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

There was visceral disappointment as she began to leave, and despair. And hunger, damned, unignorable hunger. Isfet couldn’t stop from taking another step. He wanted to call out to her, tell her to come back. He wanted to bite and tear. He wanted to ask if he could use her phone. He wanted to follow her back to the road. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted.

“Go!” He shouted again, mustering up as much ‘angry landowner’ energy as he could.

With a yelp, Izzy doubled the pace, hoping desperately she didn’t trip again. Yeah, this had been a bad idea. She should have brought someone, told someone where she was, maybe not done this at all (people had disappeared in the forest!). She’d go until she had signal and then figure out how to get back to her car from there. It was probably in this direction.

As she bolted, she figured, maybe another easy Nessie lore deep-dive was fine for her channel.

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

Isfet stopped when she fell, and then nearly froze when the faint iron scent of blood reached him.

Oh no. No. No.

He took a step toward her. And another. Still low. Still quiet. Still hunting.

His hands raised… and clamped over his nose and mouth. Shit. Shit. There was no other way out of this without… Fuck!

Isfet steeled himself, took a deep breath, and lowered his hands so that he could shout: “Leave! Now!”

Izzy hadn’t expected to be yelled at, much less by a human voice. Oh no. She’d thought this was public land, or, at least, unclaimed? Government land, in the vein of a national park and not in, like, a guarded facility way. Was she in a nature preserve or something? Augh!

“Sorry! Ah, sorry, I thought--” She scrambled for her phone and got to her feet, palms stinging and red from tiny little cuts. “Sorry, ah, let me--”

She started trying to head the way she came, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, pulse up with adrenaline from the fall and the fear of having trespassed on accident. Far cry from doing it on purpose. It was slow going, trying to pick her way around tree roots without falling again, so she kept up the apologies as she struggled.

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

Isfet hazarded a glance around the tree to see if the idea had panned out. Now he was faced with a much more vulnerable human, who wouldn’t even see him coming. It had worked. He had gotten her distracted, and now…

Now nothing! Nothing, not until he could calm himself down. Instead of staying completely hidden, or jumping out an attacking, he simply crept along the forest floor, keeping quietly to the shadow of trees and brush as he watched, as he considered his next move, and if he could properly execute it without getting in his own way…

Nothing. Nothing, nothing...a frustrating, natural part of hunting supernatural rumors, but, honestly! There had to be something here, some reason her phone camera was unable to focus, some reason for the eerily quiet forest and that sudden noise.

“If you come out, we coul--woah!”

All of this was starting to feel like a cliche horror movie, including the way her foot suddenly caught in a tree root and sent her tumbling to her knees. She hissed along with a string of ow ow ow, her hands skinned from catching herself. And she’d dropped her phone, dammit. Where was it?

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

Fuck. Fuck. She was coming closer…

Ugh. This was… a stupid move. But maybe it’d work. Isfet patted his hand around on the ground until he found a decent sized rock he could hold in his hand…

And he chucked it, off to the side. When it finally thunked against a tree, the sound might lead her that way instead of closer to him.

Izzy froze at the crashing sound. It happened once, and not again, and it didn’t sound big, but...well, cryptids could be small, and if it was a fox or whatever, that would still be something. She took a breath and changed course, unknowingly putting her back to the hiding vampire.

“Hello?”

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

He almost replied. He really did. Isfet wanted to call out to her, to tell her he was lost, and didn’t know how to get back to Maroa, or Sudbury, or, hell, anywhere that wasn’t the goddamn woods. He wanted to believe that he’d finally, finally been blessed with a normal fucking person who would help him.

But he also had other wants, wants that ran deep in his ancestry, not just as a vampire but as Liminox. No. No, he needed to think. There was a way he could do this that wouldn’t risk him losing his cool, he just… he just needed to figure out what it was first.

Quickly but quietly, he maneuvered himself behind a tree, back pressed to it as he breathed slowly. In. Out. In. Out. Calm down. Figure it out.

The longer she went without answer, the more she felt both silly and a little frightened. Something was there. Someone, maybe. But her phone wasn’t filming right and she had no reception.

“Um. Ha. I’m gonna feel...really stupid if it’s just a rabbit! I mean. But if you want to come out...” She started to step towards where she’d heard the rustling, where that unsettling fly, you fool! feeling was coming from. It’d be fine.

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

Isfet laid low, crouching and watching. Just watching. There were a whole slew of thoughts running through his head, and they were hard to untangle. Instead, he felt locked up, and the only ‘wise’ move he could manage to do was to just sit and wait. Wait for what? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything these days though, so this was just par for the course.

Izzy’s phone, unfortunately, would have a hard time focusing its camera properly. And, of course, no cell service.

Looking at her phone, something was wrong with it, too! Okay, so, unless her luck was disastrously bad, this had to be some kind of supernatural phenomenon, right? That’s why it was so hard to get a shot of a cryptid, even in the present day. Something about whatever was here, whatever encounter she was about to have, it was interfering with her both of her cameras.

“Okay, okay, let’s...we have to try anyway,” she muttered, turning on her phone’s video. Clearing her throat, she said, louder, “Hello? Would you--would you come out? No need to be scared.”

[cryptidcreeper]

stealoncepaytwice​:

Isfet’s nostrils flared. He smelled it in the air, before he heard or saw anything. It was such a latent, primal response that he didn’t even recognize it. All he knew was that he was suddenly much more alert than he’d been in days, and strangely relieved. As if his entire being was saying ’finally.’ Finally? Finally what?

And also: ’follow’. Follow. Curiosity? Hunger. Safety. Hunger.

He didn’t even question the change in his route. Thinking took too much energy. But listening… Listening he could always do. A voice, someone talking to someone…

Then seeing. She wasn’t talking to someone, just her own camera. She was all alone. Vulnerable. Easy pr–

The vampire stopped dead in his tracks. Huh?? No, no no no, where the fuck did– No. He was hungry, but not that hungry.

And yet, his feet began to move again, creeping along the densest area of trees. What was that in her hands… a camera? That was fine. What should he do? Call out to her? Or creep up and–

Goddammit, no. He forced himself to a stop.

Izzy groaned in disbelief. Her camera had been working just fine a moment ago. Now she was wondering if all of it was corrupted. She couldn’t afford to replace this!

“I could use my phone...” she muttered to herself, in the manner of a person used to filling empty silences with chatter for the pleasure of an unseen stream audience. She pulled her backpack around to put the glitchy equipment away when she realized the forest had gone very, very quiet.

That could be for any number of reasons, but the eerieness of it made her hold her breath. Was she about to have an encounter? Of course. Of course, while her camera was on the fritz. She fumbled for her phone in her pocket, excited.

[cryptidcreeper]

Found Footage

“Hey there, cuties and creepers! It’s CC here, and today I’m going to be checking out the site of a cryptid sighting--no, wait, hmm.”

Izzy lowered her camera, face screwed up in annoyance. “Site of a sighting, that’s not great. Where someone sighted...? Hmm.”

The young woman flipped the camera around, talking to herself as she filmed for B-roll. She had hope in her heart for the day; more and more strange things had been reported in the forests around Maroa, and she’d driven out specifically to try and get footage. It was a long shot--these kinds of things historically only happened to people not looking to find them--but it was a nice break from the more static, talk-y videos she’d had lately.

Ever since she’d gotten locked out of that weird roleplay site, it was like she couldn’t find anything new. Every lead she followed dried up. Or maybe it was her--she felt like she lost focus, forgot important details. Whatever it was, it meant her main channel was struggling for content, which meant struggling for viewers, and everything else struggled from there on out.

That line of thought, as well as the consideration for how her introduction should go, was interrupted as the image on her camera flickered. What? She brought it down, expecting a low battery notice or some other warning light. Nothing stood out, except for some weird pixellation in the corner.

“What now...” Ugh. Nothing was going right.

[cryptidcreeper]

saturn

[cryptidcreeper]

Oh, wow, last night was a lot, huh? Hope everyone’s okay.

[cryptidcreeper]

rad

[cryptidcreeper]

I think it’s neat that Nessie was given a scientific name just on the chance it’s real, because current law won’t provide for the preservation of an unnamed species.

It’s not neat that’s the rule, I just mean it’s neat that people will name something they haven’t been able to find just so they can make sure it’s not hurt in the future.

[cryptidcreeper]

llinvestigations​:

Oh my god it’s really not, it was super amateur from before I knew anything real about or had any experience with journalism or investigation.

Haha I suppose not traditionally famous? But your name comes up SO much in my circles.

Hey how we start out is how we learn over time, you know? People can’t just start out being perfect, usually. My old stuff is super cringey.

I really just compile stuff other people do, I don’t even have a journalism degree or anything! Without journalists I’d be SOL haha

[cryptidcreeper]

Glad to see you're still here. Thought maybe you got kicked out.

Oh no I just have a lot of editing and recording binges where I drop off here and there. It’s all good!

[cryptidcreeper]

Hi! Sorry I didn’t respond to the ask after you answered; I’ve been super busy.

I’m not famous haha! But it’s so rad to know I helped. I bet your blog’s really cool, I’ll take a look at it.

Oh my god @cryptidcreeper I thought I recognized your handle! I love your videos! I haven’t had time to watch in months, been a little busy with my day job, but they’re so informative and you’re so passionate and your videos kept me believing when I started to doubt.

I can’t believe I was talking about my ancient blog to a famous person. @_@ How mortifying.

[cryptidcreeper]

[cryptidcreeper]