The Winking Mask

Rumors of The Winking Mask Killer

Rilyn Arthur was once a girl like any other. She had a family that loved her, friends to gossip with, and dreams of something better. But that was before the woods, before the boy with the dead eyes, before the frostbite. Before Stripes.

It all started the night of that house party. Rilyn had been excited, eager to show off her new dress, the one she'd saved up for months to buy. It was supposed to be a night of fun, a night to forget about the pressures of home, the constant struggle her single mother faced to provide for five kids. But instead, it became the night that changed everything.

The party had been wild, filled with loud music, laughter, and the haze of smoke and alcohol. Rilyn was having fun, maybe too much fun, because when the time came to leave, she found herself alone, ditched by the very people she thought were her friends. They left her, drunk and disoriented, in the middle of the woods. It was a cruel joke to them, just another laugh. But for Rilyn, it was the beginning of the end.

As she wandered through the dark trees, her head spinning and her vision blurring, she realized just how deep in the woods she had been left. The cold air nipped at her skin, the silence pressing in around her. She tried to find her way back, but every step seemed to take her further into the darkness.

That's when she saw him. A boy, barely older than her, standing in the shadows. His hoodie was splattered with blood, his face pale and lifeless. But it was his eyes that caught her attention-those empty, soulless eyes. He said nothing, just stared at her as she stumbled closer.

"Help..." she managed to whisper, her breath fogging in the cold air.

The boy didn't move, didn't speak. He just watched as she collapsed to the ground, the cold seeping into her bones. The last thing she remembered before everything went black was the twisted smile that crept across his face.

When she woke up, she was in the hospital. The doctors said she was lucky to be alive, that the frostbite had nearly taken her. But they didn't understand. They didn't know about the boy in the woods, about the blood on his clothes. When she told them, they brushed it off as a hallucination, the product of hypothermia and fear.

But Rilyn knew what she had seen. And as the days passed, that image of the boy with the dead eyes haunted her. She couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. Her friends tried to comfort her, but they didn't understand. No one did.

Except for Brook. Brook had been Rilyn's best friend since they were kids. She was the only one who believed her, who listened without judgment. But then, one day, Brook disappeared. Just like that. No warning, no clues. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

Rilyn was devastated. She spiraled, consumed by grief and anger. She became obsessed with finding answers, with proving that what she saw in the woods was real. She spent hours online, searching for anything that could explain what had happened to her.

And then, she found him. His name was whispered in the darkest corners of the internet, a legend that no one dared to speak of aloud. Jeff the Killer. The boy in the woods.

Rilyn was fascinated, horrified, and intrigued all at once. She devoured every story, every rumor. The more she read, the more she felt a strange connection to him. He had saved her, in a twisted way. He had shown her the truth-that the world was cruel, that people were cruel.

That's when the change began. Rilyn started to withdraw from everyone and everything. Her once vibrant personality dulled, replaced by a dark, twisted sense of humor. She found herself laughing at things that should have horrified her, cracking jokes at the most inappropriate times. And that smile-her smile became something else entirely, a permanent fixture on her face, even when she was alone.

It was Brook's disappearance that pushed her over the edge. With no one left to turn to, Rilyn embraced the darkness. She began to hear voices, whispers in the night that urged her to seek revenge, to punish those who had wronged her. And so, she did.

Her first kill was clumsy, messy. One of the girls who had left her in the woods. Rilyn tracked her down, following her for days until she found the perfect moment. She wore a mask she had crafted herself-a crude, white mask with a smile carved into it, one eye winking. It was her signature, her calling card.

The girl didn't stand a chance. Rilyn made sure she felt every ounce of pain, every bit of terror that she had experienced that night in the woods. And when it was done, she couldn't help but laugh. The blood, the gore-it was like art to her, a beautiful, twisted masterpiece.

She didn't stop there. One by one, she hunted down the others, each kill more brutal than the last. And with each one, she felt herself slipping further away from the person she once was, becoming something else. Something darker.

The media dubbed her "Stripes" after the pattern of blood she left behind at each crime scene-lines of crimson, like brushstrokes on a canvas. But Rilyn didn't care about the name. To her, it was all just a game, a joke that only she understood.

Her obsession with Jeff the Killer grew. She wanted to be like him, to be recognized by him. She imagined what it would be like to meet him, to show him what she had done in his name. And in her mind, he would smile that same twisted smile and tell her she had done well.

But Rilyn wasn't just content with killing. She wanted to make her art more elaborate, more meaningful. She started to experiment, cutting her victims into small pieces, arranging them in grotesque displays. She used their blood to paint, creating images that only she could appreciate. It was her way of leaving a mark, of saying, "I was here."

It wasn't long before she caught the attention of others-those who lurked in the shadows, who thrived in the darkness. Slender Man was one of them, a figure as much a legend as Jeff. He saw the potential in Stripes, recognized her as one of his own. He welcomed her into the fold, into the world of the CreepyPasta, where she could truly become the monster she was meant to be.

Now, Stripes roams the night, always smiling that eerie, liminal smile. She doesn't kill for revenge anymore-she kills because it's fun, because it's art. And as she wipes the blood from her latest creation, she whispers a joke to herself, one that no one else will ever hear.

But if you listen closely, you might catch a glimpse of her, lurking in the shadows, her mask winking at you. And if you're really unlucky, you might just be her next masterpiece.