Ark Awaits: A Masky and Hoodie Creepypasta

## Ark Awaits: A Masky and Hoodie Creepypasta by Austin Popdan

*(Note: This is a fan made story. For the actual official story of Hoodie and Masky watch Marble Hornets on YouTube. I wrote this as a means of bridging the gap between the canon versions of the characters from MH and the creepypasta fandom versions that have existed since 2012. I.E., the ones that are Slender Man proxies and hang out with creepypasta characters. This story doesn't take the Marble Hornets comic as canon except for 1 aspect. I hope this pasta satisfies fans of both fandoms.)*

**Prologue**

In 2006 a film student named Alex Kralie tried to make a film called "Marble Hornets". Without warning, he abandoned the project in the middle of production, determined to later burn the film tapes and forget the whole thing ever happened. However, his friend Jay recovered the tapes and, in 2009, began investigating them and posting his findings on a YouTube channel also called "Marble Hornets". To his horror, Jay discovered that the reason Alex acted so erratic during the MH filming was because he was being stalked. But this was no ordinary stalker. This stalker was an inhumanly tall man in a business suit with no face whom Alex referred to as "The Operator". Shortly after the creation of the channel Jay would find himself being stalked by the Operator. But this was only the beginning of the nightmare...

Another YouTube channel called totheark started responding to Jay's uploads with disturbing, cryptic videos that prominently featured a masked man and later, a hooded man, both of whom started stalking Jay in real life. The two would later be dubbed by the MH subscribers as "Masky" and "Hoodie". Jay discovered that Masky was actually Tim, a member of the MH cast. Tim had been victimized by the Operator since he was a kid. He had spent most of his childhood in and out of a mental institution due to frequently blacking out and reverting to an alternate, violent persona (which would later become Masky). Tim had no memory of his other self, the totheark channel or Hoodie.

But this wasn't the most disturbing discovery Jay made. Halfway through the channels' existence he discovered what Alex had been doing since cancelling his movie: murdering the MH cast and crew one by one. Alex had come to the conclusion that the Operator was a virus and that the only to stop it from spreading was to kill everyone who had been "infected" by it. By this point, Jay and Tim were the only ones Alex hadn't gotten to yet. The MH channel ended in 2014 with Alex killing Jay, Tim killing Hoodie (who turned out to be his former best friend Brian) and Alex getting killed by Tim. In the final entry Tim disposed of the Masky mask and drove off into the sunset, with the very last shot being a black background with the words "Everything is fine".

But we all know that wasn't true, don't we? For poor Tim, those parting words couldn't have been farther from the truth...

....................................................................

It had only been a month since Tim had uploaded Entry 87 to YouTube and drove as far away from Rosswood, Alabama as he possibly could. He had spent that month in various cheap motels across North America, like the one he was currently in. What Tim was about to do was something he had put a lot of thought into. Tim had always considered suicide the cowardly way out, but now he saw no alternative. Being dead had to be better than spending the rest of his life being stalked by a literal monster and worrying about his masked alter-ego returning. Tim was holding a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. There was one last cigarette in the pack, which he had in his mouth.

When he finished his cigarette, he opened the pill bottle, took a big handful of his pills, put them in his mouth and swallowed. After a good long while, he began to convulse and foam at the mouth. After several minutes of excruciating pain, Tim began to feel his life drain away.

Before he slipped into unconsciousness, he swore he could make out the Operator standing in the corner of his hotel room.

............................................

Tim awakened in a dark, unfurnished room. *Guess that overdose didn't kill me.,* he thought to himself. "Where am I? What the hell is going on? How am I not dead? Why don't you just leave me alone?" he screamed. Suddenly a figure emerged from the shadows. Tim's eyes widened in shock. He recognized the figure immediately. That pale yellow hoody. Those black gloves. That equally black ski mask with the red frowny face design on it. There was no doubt about it, *it was Hoodie*.

"Brian? Is that you?", Tim exclaimed in shock.

Hoodie removed his ski mask, revealing the tired, dead-eyed face of Brian.

"Welcome to the Ark. Before you ask: Yes, it's me and yes, those pills didn't kill you." he said.

"What the fuck is going on? What is this place? And how are you alive? I pushed you off that windowsill. I saw your corpse! You damn bastard! I'm sick of you manipulating me!" screamed Tim, angry and bewildered. Hoodie cleared his throat and began to speak.

"The Operator brought me back, Tim. He made me a proxy, one of his minions. He'd wanted to do it for years, but he couldn't. I'm not sure why. He got damn close though. When he abducted me at that school, he left some...suggestions in my head. Everything with totheark...I'm not sure how much of that was me and how much of that was *him*. It's just all so...blurry. Me trying to kill Alex though? That was all me. Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked...What you really need to know is that as a proxy, I have to do everything *he* tells me to. I have no say in the matter. He's told me to recruit you, make *you* the latest proxy. I've always just been a means of getting to you." When he was done speaking, he put his mask back on.

Tim was silent for several minutes. He needed time to process everything he had just been told. Tim couldn't help noticing how much Hoodie's story reminded him of own his experiences dealing with memory loss and his masked alter ego. He also wondered if Alex himself was a proxy, whatever that was. Finally, he spoke a simple question.

"If I become a proxy, will I have to...kill people?"

Hoodie let out a sign before responding.

"Unfortunately, yes. All proxies are asked to kill someone at one point. You'll mostly just stalk people, though. Being a proxy's really not as bad as it seems. Sure, you'll be forced to do horrible things, but most of the time you won't even remember your proxy work. And the Operator doesn't care what we do when we're not working so you and I can hang out! We can be friends a-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence before Tim punched him as hard as he could in the stomach. Hoodie fell to his knees in pain, allowing Tim to run past him and farther into the darkness of the room they were in. He had no clue where he was going, he just knew he had to get out of there. Tim ran and ran through the pitch-black corridor, Hoodie hot on his heels. Finally, he saw the door. Luckily, it wasn't locked, and Tim made his escape. He kept running until he couldn't hear Hoodie's footsteps anymore. Exhausted, Tim stopped to look at his surroundings. He had run deep into the forest. Glancing at where he came from, he saw a building in the distance. It looked like a massive, old, run down, mansion. The mansion's back door had a circled x carved into it: the symbol of the Operator.

*I wonder if that's the "Ark"?* pondered Tim before he began searching for any way out of the woods. Suddenly, he heard a voice from behind him.

"You lost, man?" it said.

Tim turned around, fists raised, and saw two strange figures that he had never seen before. One was a young man, in his early twenties or so. He was wearing a striped hoody and had the majority of his face covered by googles and a mouthguard. He kept twitching at random intervals. The other was clearly older and was clad in a brown hoody, black gloves and a skull mask.

"Hi, I'm Toby. The other guy is Skully." explained the man in the goggles.

"Who the fuck are you? What the hell is going on? Are you assholes working for that Goddamn thing too? " screamed Tim, his voice cracking as he did so.

"Yes, we are. And we're not the only ones..." replied Skully sadly. Tim's eyes widened in shock for the second time that night. Even with the voice muffled by the mask, he could still recognize it.

"Jay? Did he get you too?" he asked in horror.

"Yeah. He brought me back after Alex killed me. *He* told me it was his way of getting back at Brian for working against him for so long." explained Skully.

"No no no no no. I am so, so sorry for what happened to you guys, but I am NOT going to be one of that freak's little puppets. None of you have too! You guys, me, Brian...if we work together maybe we can beat that thing!" exclaimed Tim.

Toby bust out laughing. "Ah, that's cute, Timmy. You actually think you have a choice!" he said, mockingly.

"Tim... Brian lied to you. Those pills did *kill* you. The Operator can bring his proxies back from the dead if the body isn't too badly damaged. If he does that, he has you, no matter how hard you've resisted his influence. That's how he got to me, that's how he got to Brian and that's how he got to *you*." explained Skully.

Before he could respond to that horrifying realization, Tim fell to the ground in a violent coughing fit. His vision blurred and he heard a deep, raspy voice inside his head. "***I've waited s⨂ l⨂ng f⨂r this m⨂ment, Tim⨂thy Wright. Alex Kralie was a failed experiment. That entire c⨂nflict was a c⨂ntest that had been g⨂ing ⨂n f⨂r years, to see which ⨂ne ⨂f y⨂u was w⨂rthy ⨂f bec⨂ming my pr⨂xy. Y⨂u w⨂n. This game has been fun, but n⨂w it's time for it t⨂ end...***"

Suddenly he was back in the dark room, with the Operator, Toby, Hoodie and Skully standing before him. Alongside them were a number of strange people that were unfamiliar to him. A knife wielding a man with burn scars all over his skin and a smile carved into his cheeks of his bone-white face. A woman with a clock where one of her eyes should be. A strange creature with clawed hands, clad in a black hoody and a blue mask, who had black slime oozing out from his empty eye sockets. A man in a blue jacket, wearing a white mask with a red smile painted on it. A woman clad in a black leather nurse uniform and surgical mask, with her hair covering one side of her face. *These must be some of the other proxies Jay was talking about*, thought Tim.

Hoodie and Toby were holding the mask and jacket he wore as Masky. *I threw that Goddamn thing away. How did they find it?* he wondered before trying to stand up. Suddenly he heard the Operator's voice in his head again. "***I marked you for pr⨂xyh⨂⨂d years ag⨂. That mark has remained invisible until this very m⨂ment. N⨂w your new life can truly begin."*** Long black tentacles emerged from the Operator's back and wrapped themselves around Tim's arms. Tim screamed as he began to feel searing pain all over his body. Images started to pour into his mind. He started to remember everything he had ever done as Masky. Images, thoughts and feelings coalesced into a jumbled mess inside his brain as he spasmed in agony.

Suddenly, the pain subsided, and the tentacles retracted. He glanced at his left arm and noticed an Operator symbol had been branded into his skin. His thoughts were clear now. *Everything* was clear now. He calmly retrieved his mask and jacket and put them on without a second thought. There was no more division between Tim and Masky. Now, they were one and the same. Two personalities had become one.

***Masky, y⨂u are n⨂w ⨂fficially a pr⨂xy. The game has finally ended.***

......................................................

Three months passed by. Hoodie and Masky had spent that time stalking their assigned target. The target was a man who had begun doing extensive research on the Operator and his proxies. This wouldn't be anything special if this target hadn't discovered the Operator's weaknesses and planned to upload them onto the internet. Masky and Hoodie had tried various intimidation tactics to get him to stop his research: Leaving drawings of Operator symbols all over his house, sending him totheark- style creepy videos, appearing in his room at night and disappearing just as quickly, etc. None of these had worked, leaving the two proxies with only one last option: punishment by death.

That night, the target heard a knock at his door. He nervously looked through the peephole of his door. He saw Hoodie and Masky, both of whom had removed their masks and hid them. The hoody and jacket looked somewhat familiar to the man, but he couldn't place where he had seen them before. Reluctantly, he unlocked and opened the door. The two proxies stepped inside his house. "Hey, I'm Brian and this is Tim. My car broke down a mile off the road. Can we use your phone to call for help? My phone's dead and Tim left his at home." said Hoodie. The target hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing. "Yeah, sure. My house phones in the other room. Let me go get it." The minute the target's back was turned, Masky put his mask back on and tackled him to the ground. The man flipped himself back up and tried to stand but was pinned down by his masked assailant.

The target weakly tried to fight back but was no match for Masky's strength. Masky pulled a knife out of his jacket pocket, raised it above his head with both hands and brought it back down on the target, stabbing him in the chest over and over again. Even though he was bleeding profusely, the man continued to cling to life. Seeing this, Hoodie (who had also slipped his mask back on) walked over to the target, pulled a handgun out of his pocket and placed it against the man's temple. "You should have quit when you had the chance." said Hoodie coldly, before pulling the trigger and splattering the man's brains all over the floor. Satisfied that the man was well and truly dead, the duo calmly walked out of the house. They found Toby and the Operator waiting for them. Toby was carrying a can of gasoline in one hand and a match in the other, intent on burning down the house and destroying everything the target had discovered. The three proxies heard the Operator's voice in their heads once more.

***C⨂ngratulati⨂ns, Masky and H⨂⨂die, for c⨂mpleting y⨂ur first missi⨂n t⨂gether. Y⨂ur w⨂rk here is finished. T⨂by's w⨂rk here is ab⨂ut to begin. C⨂me n⨂w, children. The Ark awaits...***

(Slender Man © Victor Surge. Marble Hornets © THAC. Ticci-Toby © Kastoway. All the creepypasta characters that made cameos belong to their respective owners.)