Silver Crowbar Creepypasta Book

Chapter 18- Brother of Mine

There was a lingering silence between BEN and Laughing Jack. Nothing spoke, nothing moved, the wind didn't even blow. Jack was fairly sure all the oxygen had left the air as well. The elf finally turned and looked at Jack, breaking he silence. "Did'cha snatch a kid from a school or something?" He asked, and the sound made all the air come flooding back into Jack's lungs. "Yeah- well I- sort of..." And then it began to leave him again, as if he had used up all his breath just saying those words. His throat tightened again, but he met BEN's gaze without wavering.

The elf's void-filled eyes stared back at him for a few seconds, before turning attention back to the bright blue bag. He let out a small 'huh' under his nonexistent breath, before floating down the path. Jack felt frozen in place for a moment, before wordlessly following BEN at a slightly slower pace. It wasn't too unusual for BEN to snoop, as he was a little notorious for it in the Slender Household. So it would look strange if Jack told him to back off, especially so if he was only curious about a victim's bag. Or at least, what he believed to be a victim's bag.

The elf was already unzipping he bag as Jack stepped beside him. The clown had no idea of what was inside, as he had never bothered to check, and with that uncertainty came a small amount of anxiousness. What if something inside would reveal that the bag belonged to a teenager? Still, he said nothing. It wasn't likely anyway. Was it? BEN pulled a few binders from the bag and set them aside, not paying them much attention. Jack knew that the amount of binders in that bag was a bit unusual for a child...but he stood quietly and hoped BEN wouldn't notice.

This was so much bigger than simply covering the shame of keeping a teenager alive, it was covering the crime of keeping a teenager alive. Letting humans live after they'd seen a proxy's face was forbidden in the Slender Household, and the man in charge was very serious about keeping his rules in place. Maybe Jack could get away with a punishment and a few scars, but depending on how long he and been interacting with her and letting her leave the carnival or even been keeping her alive in that cage, Jack's penalty could very well be death.

The weight of this knowledge seemed to sink him into a place that he rarely ever had to deal with. It was a slightly unfamiliar place, and had a certain unease to it that mixed with the essence of a dark feeling. After a moment, BEN sighed. "D**n it. Guess they weren't much of'a gamer, huh? There's like nothing in here." He said, digging through the bag a moment more. Jack felt himself relax a bit, surprising himself. When did he tense up? BEN floated upwards a bit with the bag in his hand, voicing a pleased 'hey' as he reached something he deemed worth while.

He pulled from the bag two packs of colored pencils. One seemed a bit more expensive than the other, made of thin metal displaying a woman drawn with the pencils it contained inside. Was Elise an artist of some sort? Well, it didn't matter anyways. "Sally'll prob'ly like these." BEN said with a knowing tone. Sally was the youngest proxy to ever survive at the Slender Household, and had remained in that position for many years. She acted similar to that of a normal little girl, drawing and playing and eating sweets. However, she was definitely not normal. As was the case for most proxies.

"...Yeah. I'll come by and bring them to her. Unless you feel like floating the entire way there." Jack replied, though his tone sounded dimmer than he had intended. BEN shivered a little at the suggestion Jack presented, immediately holding the pencils out to the clown. "Yeah, no. 'M never doing that s**t again." He said. It took a moment, but those words brought a chuckle from Jack as he took the pencils. BEN made a small grin, before he began floating backwards in the direction of the gate. "'S not funny, that s**t sucked!" He said in a tone that was only half serious.

"It's no secret. You were complaining about it that entire-" Jack's words instantly caught in his throat as a metal sound came from beneath his foot. He hadn't realized he stepped on the bag until he lifted his foot from it, stepping to the side instead. That sound was like the jangling of keys, like he unmistakable crunch of metal on metal that cannot be broken with a simple step. A child had no reason to be keeping keys in their bag, did they? "...entire week." Jack finished, walking past the bag and hoping BEN would ignore what just happened.