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The Darkman’s Domain



Estimated reading time — 7 minutes

3 weeks ago, I moved into my new house in the Ramapo Mountain State Forest in New Jersey. I moved in with my friend Ben. Ben and I split the cost of the lease 50/50 and since we were long time friends it only seemed appropriate to move in together. I had family in Jersey City and Ben’s family had moved to Pennsylvania when we were young, but nevertheless we kept in touch. We had visited each other from time-to-time and we had always made plans to rent out a home together somewhere near the wilderness. And finally now was the time. We were fresh out of our homes and ready to begin our lives as true adults – or as I came to know in the past week, end our lives. As I mentioned before, we rented our home relatively close to a state forest, which is about as wilderness as we needed. Ramapo State Forest is roughly 4,200 acres of dense, green brush and trees.

After settling the first week, we took a few hikes out into the wild to see what it would be like. Hot, muggy air surrounded us as we walked through the thick brush. Twigs snapped under our feet as we traversed the forest landscape. In the area of the forest we were in, there were rarely any other people around and when they were, they often just passed through, so we didn’t notice anyone as we walked through the brush. Though, thinking back on it, I did feel a strange sensation as if I had eyes on me. But, I brushed the feeling off initially and we continued into the forest a bit farther before stopping and turning back.

Ben was asthmatic, but not to the point where he was in any extreme danger. Typically, after pushing himself for awhile, he’d begin to feel dizzy and a bit nauseous, but I think he mostly used it as an excuse to get out of any type of physical labor. I, on the other hand was relatively healthy, no big conditions or surgeries, nothing. Usually, I was the one to had to do the heavy lifting. Anyways, after stopping for a breather, we turned back. I’m guess we traveled farther into the forest than I thought because it seemed like 40-50 minutes before we arrived back at home.

I remember as we were about to walk in in Ben had asked, “Hey dude, you hungry?”

“God, yes. I’m starved.”, I responded.

Ben then said, “Well how about we go t-”

Ben stopped as he opened the front door.

“Hey. What’s the hold up? Having an asthma issue?”

Ben turned towards me, with a confused and ghastly look on his face.

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“What’s wrong?”, I asked, a bit startled by his behavior.

“We locked the door right?”, Ben asked.

“Tighter than Fort Knox”, I said, confused.

Ben motioned me into the house. My knees turned to mush. The inside of the house was wrecked, furniture turned over, broken glass everywhere, possessions and keepsakes strewn all over the place, but what struck me the most was the scratches on the walls. They weren’t made by ANY type of blade I’d ever seen. I dragged my hand across the wall, feeling the coarse slices that were now there. The scratches were just far enough apart to mimic the distance between fingers which made thoughts of Freddie Kruger pop into my head. The scratches went down the entire front hallway. I followed them down into the living room where there was only more carnage to behold. I thought that, maybe some thieves broke in a trashed the place looking for anything with value. Ben snapped out of his shocked state and helped inspect the damage.

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The house had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a large living room and kitchen, several little places for storage, a laundry room, a garage, and the basement I had dubbed “The Pit”. Every room in the house was wrecked apart from the basement which was virtually untouched. I figured that thieves probably saw no value in a dusty, damp, old basement. But still, something in the back of my head told me there was more to it than that. We spent the next few days cleaning everything up.

By the second week, we had successfully cleaned up, repaired, and replaced most of the things we had. Though, there was nothing we could do about the scratches on the walls. Every time I walked past them I had this weird feeling, like, the feeling you get when you shut off all the lights in a basement and you feel the need to run up the stairs because you think there is something behind you. Fear.

The rest of the week was.. odd. I often felt sick before trying to go to sleep and if I didn’t, I felt watched, it was like 1000 eyes were cutting into my skull through the darkness. I didn’t get much sleep those nights. Ben looked pretty tired too.. I noticed through the wall separating our bedrooms, that he had been talking in his sleep, rambling really. It was muffled though and I couldn’t make our a single word though. We joked around saying that our house was haunted by Edward Scissorhands and Ben had mentioned something about hearing tapping on the walls outside our rooms. I was scared, even then. I went into the basement once to put some extra items in storage, a single bulb lit most of the central ground but left a lot of area submerged in darkness. I could’ve sworn I felt something just outside of my sight, somewhere in the darkness. Hiding. Waiting. Watching. I ran up the stairs and slammed the door behind me. I startled Ben, but had said nothing of what I had felt down there.

We should have left then.

The next week was the worst. Everything seemed to intensify. I heard the tapping now and it was maddening, but I was too scared to try and confront it. I heard whispers that were loud enough to be heard over the rustling of the leaves outside my window, I was terrified.

Wednesday is when everything fell apart. The night was unusually quiet. Too quiet. No birds chirping, no wind, leaves. Not even the hum of our air conditioner. Even so, I wasn’t passing this up. I said goodnight to Ben, I was tired from the lack of sleep, but also because we had a Star Wars movie marathon that night. I went into my room, closing the door behind me. I didn’t bother to undress, I hadn’t been out of the house that day. I lied down in my bed, checked my phone for messages, and shut off the bed-side lamp and closed my eyes. Instant sleep.

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Something crashed outside. I jumped out of bed and eyed the door. Ben screamed. I ran for the door but before I could even reach it, it flew open. Ben trembled and yelled at me, “We have to leave! NOW!” Before I could respond, I heard bones crack. Something splattered against my face, I placed my hand up against my face and when I pulled my hand away from my face all I saw was red. My hands trembled and my muscles tightened up. I looked to Ben’s direction, my eyes took a moment to focus and when they did, I tried to scream but it was useless. There before me was Ben with a look of pain on his face and a hand pushed through his chest. The hand retracted with inhuman speed and Ben’s body fell to the ground. There I saw a dark figure with long, deathly black hair. His arms were long and dark, he wore a tight black cloth on his body that covered everything except for his hands and feet. His legs were long, he was maybe 5’9. Everything about him was disturbing, dark, morbid. His skin was pale and had a dim glow to it which made it appear a dull gray. His hair was out of his face just enough to where I could see his features. He has a slightly tall face, thin, not round at all really. His eyes were large, too large to be human and they glowed like an animal’s eyes in the moonlight that came through my window. He had no pupils, just bright white eyes that glowed candescently when the light him them just right. Also, a particularly disturbing feature was his mouth, or, more like his smile. He smiled at me like his mouth was made of stone. He had a mad grin from ear to ear. His teeth were relatively sharp and they were roughly the same color as his skin and he just stared at me. His hands though, his hands were the worst though. He were inhumanly long and his fingers were split in half by blades that were merged with his knuckles. Even so, he moved each half of his fingers like they were all separate.

I blinked. In an instant, his head cracked sideways and I heard a noise that sounded like an entire spine snapping in half. He was still.

In that moment, with Ben dead on the floor and his killer looking me dead in the eyes, I decided that I need to run. Run as fast and as far as my body could let me go. I blinked again. His hand twitched and his voice rattled and he said to me, “This… is… my… domain.” He let out and inhuman screech and I dove out of my bedroom window and into the backyard. I got a few cuts, but I wasn’t dead. I ran into the forest, it was my best bet. I heard him run after me, he was fast. I heard him growl and screech after me. I ran as far as I could and somewhere deeper in the forest, I must have lost him. I couldn’t hear anything, no wildlife, nothing. Even the stream was still. There was an opening to a cave I crept into in and settled in the corner. I reached into my pocket to see if I had any food, but all I found was the sheet of paper and my favorite pen. So I began to write. I lost track of time and it is still too dark to see much, but my eyes have adjusted to the light. If I don’t make it out and somebody finds this paper, burn that house down to ash. Ben would’ve wanted it that way.

I’m beginning to sob, I placed my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound.

Wait… No no no no no! I hear something outside of the cave entrance. I think he’s found m-

Credit To – Zak Yates

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Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

32 thoughts on “The Darkman’s Domain”

  1. Alfred Mendez Derfla

    I gotta say,it wasn’t terrible but was far from great. I read your reply zak and I gotta say great attitude. I know this is an old story and thread, but I look forward to checking out your other work.

  2. Pretty good! But typical. There were lots of spelling errors and you used though unnecessarily, though. I felt like he couldve excaped, though.

  3. WhatDoesTheFoxSay:
    The monster sounds a little like Chris Motionless :3 <3
    Anyways, I guess I can’t say “OH MAH GAWRD THIS WAS TURRIBLY AWFUL!” because I don’t think it was. What I CAN say is that some of the cliches throughout the story I was not fond of. I liked the idea, and as far as grammar and structure your story was executed amazingly. I believe with a little more effort this story could be a 10. I also believe that if you listen to these amazing people on Creepypasta that are giving you advice, you could be so much better (as a writer). Keep writing, because I would love to hear more from you. :) Good luck!

    Omg my love for you,(despite the fact that I don’t know you cx) just exploded outwards c: yay for Chris!

  4. Nice pasta, but it has some problems.
    1. WHY DID HE WENT IN THAT CAVE? HE COULD RUN FOR HIS LIFE BUT NO, HE CHOSE TO GO TO A DEAD!
    2. That ending made the whole story sound fake. I know it is, but when they make you believe that it’s real, the pasta is even more scarry.
    Also a nice pasta 7/10

  5. @Herobrine

    It’s totally alright, I’m just a sophomore myself! I’d love to do a little co-op writing but it may be tricky getting communication established. Seeing that there’s no private messaging on this site, however I could always give you any assortment of usernames I have in which we could communicate.

    Thanks!

    -Zak

  6. @Zak Yates
    I do not have any pastas on this website, however, I am a writer, even if I’m only in Highschool.

    Anywho, I would love to work with you to better your writing techniques. I don’t know how I can give you my email address without giving it to the whole world, but I can help you out.

    -Herobrine

    Always watching…

  7. I think details could’ve been added to make this a bit more realistic… after they found their house trashed all I could think about for the rest of the story was why they didn’t call the police. I did read your reply to previous comments and I understand this is your first published story on the site; just my two cents here. Take your time with plot development and be mindful of details. Overall not a bad pasta at all.

  8. WhatDoesTheFoxSay

    The monster sounds a little like Chris Motionless :3 <3
    Anyways, I guess I can't say "OH MAH GAWRD THIS WAS TURRIBLY AWFUL!" because I don't think it was. What I CAN say is that some of the cliches throughout the story I was not fond of. I liked the idea, and as far as grammar and structure your story was executed amazingly. I believe with a little more effort this story could be a 10. I also believe that if you listen to these amazing people on Creepypasta that are giving you advice, you could be so much better (as a writer). Keep writing, because I would love to hear more from you. :) Good luck!

  9. Thank you! These are the kind of comments I’m looking for! I enjoy being critiqued on my writing with the hopes that I may learn some valuable information that may allow me to become a better writer. I can’t learn anything if all I get is, “Well, that was awful.” With a comment like that I’m unsure WHAT was awful and, in turn, I cannot learn anything.

    To a new reader, this story may be very nice, but to a veteran reader this will definetly seem cliche and very predictable. Call it a beta test for me, I suppose.

    I will be submitting my latest once the new Open Submission time rolls around, and I would hope that it would be more satifsfying to a large audience.

    Thank you Katherine, that was brilliant and it helped me more than you know. I never did understand ending a story with, “oh he’s found me, scaaary *death*” but I wrote in an ending like that, half because it was 4AM, I was too close to finishing to stop so I (huge mistake, never do this ever) rushed my way through the last paragraph. And half because I had an H.P Lovecraft story in mind at the time which influenced the ending a bit. Again, thank you. I will re-read your paragraph several times to soak in the information.

    And thank you, Madinverse, I understand what you mean by writing for yourself and I agree. Looking back at the last comment I kind of see miscommunication there. What I really meant was, I wanted to hear some different preferences and thoughts on how so and so could have changed and so-forth. Make no mistake, I am writing for me, but at the same time I want to provide people with a story that they may read again and again and that they may pass it on to friends or family and such.

    All in all I see writing as an art form and art doesn’t look right unless it flows. With that in mind, I would like ideas that I can bring together in a sort of collective then I would use my talent for writing to combine and twist and turn all these idea into something functional, much like a symphony. Except my symphony is arranged out of words and ideas rather than notes and vibration. My goal is to create something large and unheard of, something that can amass a following and through this following, connections.

    I not only want to entertain people with a story, I want to form a bridge between people where they can meet and form friendships and bonds. That’s the point. I don’t want to become famous, I don’t want to get paid. I want to help people I may never meet, through writing.

    I don’t care if I have to write thousands of dead-end stories before I can achieve my goal, but by God I will achieve it.

    Again, thank you, I’m sure I sound insane by now but that is completely normal. I wish you all the best.

    -Zak

  10. This one was classic in feel, but a bit predictable (obviously something is still creeping about) and a bit cliched. That said, it was technically pretty strong. I enjoyed the narrative voice. It was engaging and managed to tell the story pretty well. You kept me interested in the story, even though I was pretty sure I knew where it was headed. Your writing style was engaging enough to keep me interested in how you were leading us to that point. It is a classic monster story, and really doesn’t try to be much more, which means it isn’t a stand out story, but that doesn’t mean it is bad. I think it shows a lot of promise and is enjoyable to read. I do wish the description of the monster was a handled with a bit more subtlety and tact, not just a bulk paragraph, but that’s my preference. I also really don’t feel this was helped by the “final message” idea. Anytime a story ends with an interrupted word because the narrator kept writing while the creature crept up and killed them, it just makes me groan. I don’t feel this story needed it, and if I simply ignore the couple of sentences that started that, I like it even more. For a first pasta, it’s pretty solid. I hope you continue to work and write some more, because I think you have some serious talent at conveying a story. Hopefully we get to see some original work from you! Happy writing!

  11. Keep in mind that this is my first pasta and I did very much “follow in the footstep of those before me”. I didn’t make much attempt to vary from other stories and endings but I now have several stories stored onto my computer awaiting submission that are unlike this one (Apart from a Darkman’s Domain PT.2 I wrote to close out gaps in the lore and such).

    I am currently working on a variation of projects and I would love to work with someone who has experience with writing pastas so I can learn a trade and hopefully bring delightful nightmares to people everywhere.

    Your criticism will be noted and I will try and write for what the majority wants. I can’t please everyone, but I can try my hardest. Thank you for the kind words, praise, and criticism all alike.

    -Zak

    1. Mr. Yates, your comment seemed very humble, so I’m going to give you the best advice I can give a fledgling writer – DO NOT, I repeat NOT! write for what the majority wants. If you do that then you will repeat the same tired cliches and “Oh, so convenient” details that plague this pasta. Instead, write for yourself. Don’t try to write a creepypasta. Instead, create a story. Be creative. Be inventive. Be original.

  12. Story was good up until the point where the monster was revealed. That was when it went from some potential to cliched overused non-scary stuff.

  13. “OOO and what new pasta is this? Like a mixture between Slendy, Jeff, and the Rake all mushed up into one huge pasta of DEATH! Twas delicious pasta.
    Nomnomnom.”

    -Mr. Taco

    1. Yes. Because freddy Kruger is about a monsterish fiend that lives in the forest in new jersey and kills anyone who enters his “domain”. You know… unless you are just stupid…

  14. There are so many things wrong with this pasta. So I’ll just say this might be the most implausible ending to any story I’ve ever read, and leave it at that.

  15. That was a good story! A few grammatical errors but nothing a simple once-over won’t fix. It was a good length and the monster sounds creepy and gross. Good stuff, the ending was a little cliched but still a good story. 8/10!

    1. I say he ran out of ink there. Nothing to be seen here, people. Carry on, Do not worry about the scratches on the walls or the screams you hear at night, perfectly normal around here.

      Still scared, here… Let me stroke your hair with my razors until you sleep… Sleep deeply and never wake up.

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