Darling

Darling
Well, how do I start this? I guess I need some help. I've felt so helpless and depressed for the past month, and I feel like the only way to make myself feel slightly better is to have you listen to my story, and make you aware of what I'm aware of. That way, just maybe, we can stop something like this from happening again. I should mention, if you're sensitive to material of a violent nature, or just don't want to hear things that are overall disturbing, then click away now.

My name is James, my online alias being jajames7 most of the time, and I love modding Bethesda games, and playing mods for these games. Fallout 3 was always my personal favorite game in the series and the mods for it were always fun to use. I recently made a new mod for the game that updates the items menu. Just a nicer display of your character's name, current status, and quest in progress. It honestly wasn't anything special; I mostly just made it for myself, but I let everyone have access to it.

About a month ago, I received a message about it:

"jajames7 i just saw ur mod for the menu screen. i really liked it and i think you would like my quest mod. its called darling and i think you should play it :)"

I'm no fool to think that he actually even looked at the mod, but I'm a sucker for quest mods. Yes, I know most of them are so bad, but that's exactly why I love them. And the complete disregard for any rules of grammar made me feel so sure that this was going to be a good one. I thought I could have a laugh to chill out after work.

It came with the basic instruction of going to Megaton to trigger the quest. Seemed easy enough. I started up the game and selected a save file. Fallout had been hard to start playing for me recently. You see, I named my character, Lisa, after my little sister. Four months ago, Lisa had gone missing, without a trace. Everyone had thought she was dead, besides me, that's part of the reason that I refuse to stop playing on this file. Anyway, it was always a little hard to see her name, and it always made me wonder what happened to her.

I went to Megaton and entered. It was at this point that I realized this quest assumed that you didn't blow up Megaton. In a garbage symbolic view, it assumed that you couldn't have been that bad of a person in-game. After taking a few steps, the quest triggered and I was approached by a new NPC. He was like nothing I've ever seen. He was a large man with a black coat that hung all the way down to his knees, despite his size, the coat was made for an even larger person, or perhaps to conceal weapons. He had a scraggy gray beard, and similar hair.

It was weird. I never have seen an NPC like him anywhere in the game. The creator actually made this himself, and the man was voiced as well. It didn't sound like what I would have expected from him, and he couldn't act for his life. The man told me that he heard about my accomplishments and he needed me to retrieve his dog for him. He said there was an entrance underground by an abandoned truck near a tree just outside the city. He said to be careful, because the area he was sending me to was part of a large med trade, and that powerful mercenaries would be on guard.

After that, he walked out of Megaton. I was impressed, the mod seemed to be something of a higher quality than I expected. I was curious to see what awaited me underground. I moved to outside Megaton, I looked around the city, and I did find what the man described, a truck and a tree that seemed to not have been there originally. So I went to investigate, and as I turned around the truck, something knocked my character off balance. In a hazy glimpse, I saw the same man with a sledge. He swung it at me as I was on the ground, and the screen faded to black.

After a short time, the screen came back, and I appeared to be in a cellar. I could only move slowly, and the ability to go to third person disappeared. I also was low to the ground, like in the open tutorial levels. This was all to simulate the experience of crawling painfully along the ground. I crawled until I saw a staircase that led up to a closed door. It wasn't long before the door opened, and the man was back.

He said: "Hello darling". Unlike before, when everything he said sounded forced, he seemed completely real now. As if he had gotten used to saying this to someone. He came down the steps and looked at me. I could still move, and I tried to back away from him. He came closer and said: "You're home now. Don't worry". He stepped behind me and I lost the ability to move, as my character grunted. He then said: "Calm down, darling, I just want you to enjoy this experience." My character began to make explicitly pained noises, and my health bar, which was at less than half now, began to steadily decrease.

I paused the game, and thanked God that I was able to. What kind of depraved shit was this? Who in their right mind would ever think of creating a mod like this?

I went to get a drink of water. I was trying to cool myself off. I tried to reason with myself that I was adding too much meaning to it because of what had happened to Lisa. However, it was fucked up, and there was no denying that, so I decided to message the creator to tell him that this was screwed up and he went way too far. It seemed like he was still online and that he got it. The game was still paused. I realized that I already went through all of my water. I decided it would be worth it to refill before I went on to do anything else.

By the time I got back I had a reply: "You didn't finish playing it did you? It won't make sense to you until you finish it."

This was sketchy as hell, I knew it at the time too. Was the stupid message and description just some trick to get my attention? What was this guy's problem and what did he mean?

This is embarrassing to say, but I always thought that maybe online stories of haunted video games and crazy shit in them were true. I mean everyone thinks that the protagonists are idiots because they continue to put themselves in harm's way, but let's face it: None of us believe this shit can happen, so we'd keep playing all the same. So against every bit of my best judgment, I decided to unpause the game.

The cringe-worthy noises continued, but right before the health bar reached 0, the screen faded again. Just like before, my character regained consciousness in the same place. My health was low, but I saw a motion that Lisa made. She slowly staggered to her feet, and I could move her normally again. I checked my inventory to find that there was nothing but pins left. I noticed some food in the corner of the room. I took it and consumed it to recover some health.

The steps were clear, so I went to the top of the steps, and to my surprise, the door was unlocked. When I attempted to leave, I was presented with a text box and an option.

It read: "Are you sure you want to leave? If you do, you'll never find out what happened to her." And the options were yes and no.

It felt like my heart stopped for a moment. This was bullshit, it had to be, I kept thinking to myself. Some random fucking shit that was supposed to seem cryptic, and not mean anything. Could someone really be trying to fuck with me like this? Someone who knows that my sister went missing and is just terrible enough of a person to try and harass me about it. Maybe he expected me to hit No, and stay, because he thought I would buy into his game. I refused. This sick bastard wasn't getting into my head. I hit yes, and the following message appeared. "Just like her, you thought you had the choice" The man was waiting in a room behind the door. He pulled out a bat and struck Lisa with it. She fell backwards. Staggering to her feet again, she put her fists up. I was able to control her, so I just tried punching him over and over again. He didn't even flinch. He struck Lisa with the bat, and she fell to the ground. The only thing I could see was the floor of the basement. I heard his voice again: "You've been very bad, darling, after all I've done for you." There was screaming from the game... not the character's sound when they take a hit, but actual screaming. I knew the scream too... I put my hands to my ears and started shouting. How could this be her voice? How can I hear it so clearly? I started crying for a bit then stopped. Something occurred to me. Lisa's voice seemed to cut out at times, and it sounded like the same thing over and over again, and it certainly didn't sound like she was really in pain. The audio was messed with and at times I could hear what sounded like water. Then I realized why I recognized her voice so easily. Way before this, I had taken a video of her at a family reunion being chased around by our younger cousins with water guns. The water was really cold and she was screaming everytime she got wet. I remember I sent it to her and she posted it on her Facebook. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Suddenly, a random asshole trying to fuck with me didn't seem like such a big deal when compared to what I thought was going on. It followed the traditional way of having the screen fade away and then return in the original spot. Only this time, I was standing straight, and I couldn't move far at all. I attempted to move for a few seconds, until I saw something on the wall; Lisa was chained to it. I had the option to pick the locks, but I knew where that was going to lead. I decided to just listen and drink some of my water. After only a little bit, I did actually hear a noise. It seemed to be coming from a door near the corner opposite from me. He really was willing to give me every distraction to try and make me pick the locks on those chains. I had actually considered turning the game off in a bit, but now I wondered if there was a scripted event for if I stayed completely still. I gave it about a minute or two, and I turned out to be right. From the top of the steps, the man returned. He had a genuinely happy expression on his face, like someone had just given him a present. He spoke to Lisa: "Thank you for being so patient, darling. It hurts me to see you like this. Let me get you out of there." He unlocked the chains and I was free to move. The thought of escape entered my mind, since I didn't hear the door close behind him. However, given my low health, and the fact that I saw a pistol equipped on him, I determined that there was no situation where I was making it very far. "Come over here, I have something I want to do for you."

He walked over to a table with a radio on top of it. I had Lisa follow. He seemed to interact with it, and then he turned to Lisa. When he spoke this time, his voice was different, it sounded like it was coming through some sort of radio, or at least a less professional recording device. "We're recording a message for James. Say hello." I immediately sat up straight. I had no idea what this sick bastard had planned next, but I knew I was going to be pissed about it. There was a moment of silence before I heard a weak voice respond: "H-hi Jimmy..." I could feel my face turn white, and my stomach instantly felt sick. There was no denying it was her, but there was never any time I ever heard her sound like that before. She sounded tired, starving, and just like she had given up on everything. She spoke again. "I just wanted to say that I love you big bro. You've always been my hero and I know we fought a lot, but you've always been..." She started crying for a moment. "You've always been my best friend." I couldn't stop myself from crying. This wasn't a mod. This was a fucking rapist sending me a message, as if he was proud and bragging about what he's done. All of it was real. Everything and more happened to her, and it wasn't fair. There was nothing she could do. The man spoke again: "Alright. Now, tell him goodbye darling." "Goodbye, Jim..." The man turned off the radio, and began to walk Lisa away. I had no control over her. I smashed every button on the keyboard until I just turned off the game. I punched my desk in frustration and started shouting more profanity than I've ever said before. I messaged that mother fucking psycho that I was going to kill him and make him pay, and all sorts of things that I don't even remember because the message was never sent. The account was deleted moments after his last message to me was sent. I was still shouting and raving like a mad man. At this point, my neighbors came rushing in to see if I was okay. One of them called 9/11, and when they connected to an operator. I took the phone and just started shouting things. Things that probably didn't even make sense at all, and I'll never remember them, but somehow the police arrived anyway. I tried with such intensity to tell them what had happened, but I was losing breath and my speech and thoughts were no longer coherent. I passed out. On the way to the hospital, I managed to regain my sanity. I made sure the second I was out of the ambulance to have an officer talk to me. I explained everything that happened. They remained in disbelief for a while, but they managed to examine the file and preserve it as evidence. They said in the smallest way, I was lucky. The mod disabled autosaving for the duration of the playthrough, and it was programmed to delete its content when the quest was finished. Since I shut it off seconds before the end, I wasn't just a mad man raving about a file that didn't exist. Upon inspecting the origin of the files, it was determined that I was the only one who downloaded them. They were actually even able to trace the files to the IP that uploaded them. It was a property on rent to whoever the man was. The landlord said he was a strange guy; he owned a van, but he never seemed to leave his house. He said that he was even more odd in appearance. He was a big guy, with a scraggy beard, and he was always wearing a coat that was somehow even too big for him. Yeah, sounds familiar, right? The officer also did me the favor of connecting me with a guy a few hundred miles from me. Apparently, Lisa hadn't been his first darling. A guy named Sam had also had his sister, Julia, go missing, Sam was into guitar covers and posted many of his on Facebook. A large man with a beard and coat added him and wanted him to check out some of his covers. They started to become disturbing tributes to a girl named Julia, in which several acts were discussed, and eventually our friend managed to do a beautiful duet with Julia of Sam's favorite song. A rapist who gets off to seeing his victim's family members in agony as well, what a sick fuck. Now, you're probably wondering why I would be happy about this. Well, as it turned out, Julia's hair had also been found at the house, and that she had been alive up until the point that they left. Even though, Julia had been missing for over six months. I'm convinced that Lisa is still very much alive, a part of the coat man's collection of darlings. I still play and mod Fallout, mostly for these reasons. My family and therapist think it's unhealthy, but I'd become unhealthy if I didn't. Constantly believing that Lisa would stop existing if I ever stopped playing, I always play as her now and upload every mod with her image or name clearly in the shot. Just on the off-chance that I'm still being watched, and our bearded friend decides that he wants to have more fun. If he does, this time I'll be ready. I know he can't keep this up forever, and eventually he has to get caught. The only problem is he might still have some time on his hands. The reason you won't hear this in the news or anywhere else is because the police told us that in order for them to have the upper hand in the search, and keep the victims alive, they need to not alarm the kidnapper. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the money that was thrown at them by companies that really don't want a PR disaster right now. Either way, they've threatened me if I go take this to the press, and that means that no one will know about this, and no one will see him coming when he starts to make them a part of his game. So what gives me the balls to go and post it on here if I can get in trouble for it. Well, the fact that you don't believe me. You think I'm full of shit and just posting a video game story online. No one will think any bit of this is even slightly real, at least at first. Maybe, and God forbid that this tragic event ever happen to anyone, if one day, your sister or daughter goes missing, you'll think back to this story. And you'll still be skeptical as hell, such a bizarre and fucked coincidence, but if you see that man, in whatever form he chooses to appear to you, you'll realize it was real. I hope you're faster to react than I was; it'd be a shame to lose your darling to this man.

DanDGaming (talk)DanDGaming

Post-story Debriefing
As much as I'm content with the ominous and disturbing nature of the ending, I do feel tht due to the material I'm working with, I have to say the obvious. The story is fictional. None of the people or events in the story are real.

Rape and kidnapping are terrible things and they're all too real in our current society. I've seen complaints in the comments of pastas and other works that the use of rape as a device is immoral and more disturbing than should be allowed. As you might expect, I disagree. The point of a creepypasta is to unnerve and disturb someone, and the fact that you're bothered by it is the desired reaction. I personally think the worst thing that we can do is not talk about it. I don't plan to have this be a main point in the conversation, but I've done my best to convery the horror that and stress that is suffered by the victims and family members of this heinous crime and put it into a medium where it is the best at accomplishing what these stories are supposed to do.

I guess in the end, what I say won't matter if you were affected by an event like this, and I'm sorry if this brings unwanted and painful thoughts to your mind.