Run, Escape, and I Will Find You



I awoke abruptly late one night in early June several years ago. Frightened for no apparent reason, I hesitated to open my eyes to what dangers may have been present in my bedroom. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. Unsettled, I tried to go back to sleep. An hour passed and I gave up. I took the laptop from underneath my bed and instead of doing what one might think a male teenager in this position would do, I loaded up my favorite game – RuneScape.

Upon logging in to my home world of one-hundred-eleven, I saw no one at all in Varrock. Puzzled, I checked Edgeville, but still no one was there. Excited by having a world to myself, I went to go kill some green dragons to make some quick cash. I put on my traditional dragon slaying gear and entered the wilderness. Figuring I would meet a pker during my killing, I made sure to have Falador teleport runes just in case.

Half an hour had passed of killing dragons, and still I had not seen anyone. Stopping at the bank to check my tentative profits based on world 2 prices, I had made a cool 750k with minimal effort. I double checked to make sure I wasn’t dreaming that I had a world to myself. Upon entering the wilderness once more, something was… off. The barren wasteland of the wilderness had become luscious and beautiful. I turned my camera around to see a desolate and abandoned Edgeville that greatly resembled a burnt ghost town.

Figuring it was a graphical error, I proceeded back to killing dragons. Everything was fine until I rubbed my Amulet of Glory and returned to Edgeville. A screaming noise blared through my headphones as I was attacked by what looked like a cross between a black dragon and a greater demon. I quickly turned on protect melee to defend myself then right-clicked its name – “Doomd Murch” was a shocking level 606 beast of pure terror. I had never seen anything like this before. It shut off my prayer as I teleported to Falador.

Upon my arrival, Falador, too, looked abandoned and run down. A shadowy figure approached me and I was glad to finally see another player. I asked him what was going on and he told me I should take shelter like the others or just log out. Not wanting to miss out on what was going on, I refused to log out. I really wish my curiosity hadn’t gotten the best of me that night. Before I was able to ask the player what we should be hiding from, I heard a scream. I couldn’t tell if it came from my house, outside, or from my headphones. I ran to my parents’ room and to my little sister’s room to make sure they were okay. I breathed a sigh of relief as I returned to my laptop. Then I heard yet another scream.

Still worried, I looked outside my window. What I saw was a hooded man in the dimly lit intersection in front of my house. Only, he was alone, standing there in the middle of the street. I went to another window to get another angle at the hooded man, but he was gone. Thinking I had just been seeing things, I returned to my laptop. I had been gone for more than five minutes, but I was still logged in. I tried to log out and it didn’t work. I tried to close my browser and it didn’t work. I hit the power button on my laptop and it didn’t work. Something was very wrong.

I looked back at the screen and my character was now standing safely in the Mining Guild with many other players. It was a total spam fest like a player might expect to see at Falador Park in world 2. Only, instead of advertising, “Free Sharks if you show you’re inv,” or “Flash2:Wave: Free armour trimming – O000O0O0,” it was, “Wtfs goin on,” and, “Wtf y cant i log out.” Everyone was apparently just as confused as me. Being the last one to enter the room, a group of level 126s who had established themselves as leaders approached me and asked me what I had seen.

I recounted to them the dragon-type creature, the scream, and the mysterious man outside. All of the sudden, the spam stopped and no one spoke.

“You saw him too?” a player asked me.

“I saw him as well.” Another player chimed in.

Before long, everyone chimed in and had seen the same man outside their window. My heart sank. This was becoming surreal and quite terrifying. I was tempted to throw my laptop against the wall, but I would have a hard time explaining to my parents that there was a computer error where Windows XP wasn’t to blame. The shadowy figure entered the Mining Guild and everyone was prepared to fight, but he wasn’t our enemy. He told us all to quickly follow him to his Player Owned House in Rimmington where we would be safe. We obeyed and followed him. When he entered his house, I was the next one in. We each sat on one of his Demonic Thrones.

Once everyone had settled in, he locked the house, assuring us that no one would be getting in. “As long as you are here,” he told us, “you may as well enjoy yourselves.” The house was incredible. I quickly found myself dominating in the combat ring of his house. As I killed the last player in the combat ring, we found ourselves appearing in Falador. Many hellish demons were there and I began to kill them. No one else seemed to be able to attack them but me, so a large crowd began following me. As the demons multiplied, I kept killing them, but they didn’t seem to be fighting back.

The demons began retreating toward Edgeville. I continued to pursue them there when all of the sudden, the same creature form before attacked me. He cast a spell I had never seen before. It immediately took all my health and I died. Instead of respawning in Falador, I was taken back to the log in screen. Thinking I had momentarily lost the connection, I tried to log back in, but could not. My death had banned me from the game. I tried to get on a backup account and warn players on the forum, but I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Standing against the back wall of my room was the hooded man from the street.

I was frozen on my bed, unable to move. The man smiled and congratulated me on what had happened. I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I couldn’t seem to bring any words to my mouth. He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed something out of it. I passed out from fear. I awoke the next morning for school. I was wondering if what had happened earlier that morning was real or just a dream, but it was just a normal Tuesday. My eyes were bloodshot and I was shaking all day. I avoided contact with as many people as I could that day and many people pointed at me while whispering to one another.

When I got home, I went straight to my room. It seemed like Windows XP took even longer to boot up than normal. I loaded RuneScape immediately. They added some new minigame, which I didn’t care about, and when I went to log in and it said I had been banned. I looked on the table next to my bed and saw a small black box. In it was a letter with the following message:

''Doomed are those who oppose Me Under My hood is the source of all fear Running away from Me will do nothing I will always be watching you, day and night An escape is impossible, don’t even try Laugh, I shall, as I count down 3 Don’t worry; your death shall be swift 2 Don’t resist and it will be painless 1 Run, Escape, and I will find you…''

I think I might be going crazy, but sometimes I wake up during the middle of the night and think that I see Him out of the corner of my eye or outside my window. Just be careful out there, ‘Scapers…