The Horror of Madcap Scout

My eye's hurt. I'm weak, I trip nearly every couple of feet. I'm just flat out tired. I haven't slept for days, for I know what will happen when I close my eyes for the slightest of moments. That.. that... thing. It pursues me almost everywhere I go. Whether it be in reflections, out of the corner of my eye, or in plain sight. I feel reluctant to post this here, but after many sleepless nights I don't know what else to do. I fear that it's too late for me now, it knows it has me in it's grasp. I'm hoping that at the very least I can save the rest of you, so please listen to my tale, and heed my warning...

Exactly two weeks ago, I was browsing the Steam Workshop, looking at the latest submissions and rating them. It was like any other day on the workshop, there were a few good submissions here, a few bad ones there, and a small handful of troll submissions. But just as I was about to stop, just as I was about to call it quits and actually play some TF2, a peculiar submission caught my eye. It had almost 31 views. The picture of the item you see itself isn't "cursed", but the page it came from is.

When you saw this picture, I'm sure you reacted like I did. Laughed and chuckled a little at how strange and out of place this vest and hat wearing Scout looked in the TF2 universe. Even now, I still don't have all the answers, but as near as I can figure, this model, and it's Steam Workshop page along with it are harboring a sinister beast.

The first night after I had viewed it, I kept getting this strange feeling, just out of no-where. I only got this feeling when I was in my room however. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was someone around me. The next night wasn't much better. The feelings got much more intense, to the point where I had to go to the bathroom and vomit. The negative feelings shifted from my room, to the entire house the next day. Everywhere I went, it felt like something was just hovering over me. I only got rest when I went to a friend's house or to a hotel. Even then it felt like I was being observed, judged from a distance.

Eventually it became more intense. After about a week after viewing the accursed page, my nights became restless and filled with nightmares, and so had been every night since then. I dream of the model from that page chasing me down a long hallway-like corridor. It doesn't appear to want to get me, just haunt my very soul and chip away at my sanity until it can finally strike. It doesn't run, but it glides in midair, relentlessly pursuing me until it at last I awaken in my bed safe and sound. I awake feeling nauseous and tired, as if I was actually running. I still hear its warped laughter, and deep voice taunting me. I couldn't make out what it was saying at first, but after a couple of nights, I have an idea of what it is saying. All it says is "Rest your eyes, relax. It'll all be fine." With each passing night my mind grows weaker, and I can feel my sanity ebbing away.

Now you may be thinking, "It sounds like you're having some weird, twisted nightmare. Just lay off the spicy foods before bed and it will go away." But unfortunately, that is not the case... A couple nights later, the nausea and feeling of being watched went away after 4 days. I didn't know what happened the last 4 days, but I was just glad it was over. For once, I was able to go about my life normally. I decided to take a break from my normal busy routine and relax. I sat down, and decided to turn my computer on.

I opened Steam, and went to browse the workshop, as I normally do. For some reason though, the page seemed empty. There was only about 3 submission or so. Some hair for the Heavy, a vest and hat combo for the Scout, and a belt for the Sniper. I was about to leave the page when I noticed the 2nd submission. I shivered and felt nauseous again as I noticed what it was. The name was "Rest your Eyes", with none other than the Madcap Scout picture. The name of the submission wasn't "Rest your Eyes" when I first visited it. I tried to click out of Steam, but my mouse seemed to be dead. The cursor moved over to the Madcap picture and clicked.

I quickly grabbed my mouse, which decided to work now for some reason, turned Steam off, and put my computer to sleep as fast as I could. My mind was blank. I couldn't think straight. Why did the submission change names? Why was my mouse moving by itself? I suppose the creator probably re-uploaded it under a different name, but... why was it named after what Madcap kept repeating in my nightmares? I tried to rationalize it the best I could, but I gave up after awhile. The initial shock went away from seeing the picture and name after about 5 minutes. I decided to play some TF2 to clear my head. "Airblasting people off cliffs should clear my mind." I thought. I was dead wrong.

I had started the game and waited for it to load. Upon loading, I immediately noticed that the background of the main menu was different. It was the Doule-Cross background used during Full Moons. I didn't question it, since I don't really keep up with the Full Moon cycles for TF2. I opened the server menu and headed to one of my favorite servers, a 24/7 rotation server of Payload Maps. The name of the maps are displayed on the map loading screen. I expected to see something like pl_barnblitz or pl_goldrush. Instead, I saw Rest_Now.

Once the map had finished loading, I found myself on a strange, somewhat modded version of the map ctf_2fort. I chose Pyro, as it's my favorite class. It was night time with a full moon up in the sky. It seemed to be raining. The map looked deserted, but upon bringing up the scoreboard, I discovered there was one other player on the map.

"Madcap Scout"

My mind raced around and around trying to grasp this. Despite being the only player on the server, Madcap had gained a few points. He had at-least 31 points. Just the amount of views the Workshop page had.

"My god." I said when I finally figured it out. Madcap was some demonic creature, that, through the workshop, was manifesting itself into the person's computer, and into their lives. Those who viewed it, like me unfortunately, got the pleasure of meeting him personally. At first I tried to simply exit the map, seeing no point in playing with this creature, but when I clicked the disconnect button nothing would happen. Figuring that it was a glitch, I decided to just stay for a minute or two then try again.

I walked around the map for a bit, but couldn't find Madcap Scout, so I assumed that he was just some player named Madcap Scout who was idling. I was almost relieved until I heard a strange sound coming through the speakers of my headset. It sounded like one of the Scout's lines, but it was so heavily garbled and digitized that I couldn't make out what he was saying. It took me a second to realize it, but I noticed the voice almost instantly.

I quickly turned around and saw it floating there. The model from the workshop. The creature from my nightmares... Madcap Scout himself. The model looked especially jarring against the far superior modeled map itself. It appeared as if he was taken straight out of the picture. For once, he actually appeared to have some sort of animation, as his head was bobbing to the movement of his flight. At first he just floated there, like any other model when using that old Civilian glitch, but then he started to glide towards me, like in my nightmares.

Instinctively, I attempted to Puff n' Sting him, but neither the flames nor the airblast from my Degreaser had any effect on him. He did not catch on fire, nor did the airblast push him back, he just kept advancing forward, completely unscathed. I backed away over to the RED building. He didn't seem to be moving very fast. He was just playing with me at this speed. Then, his mouth moved and I heard some garbled gibberish in the Scout's voice that sounded like, "You look tired, why don't you Rest your Eyes?"

I then tried to turn tail and run so that I could regroup, but suddenly the Madcap Scout performed a variation of the BOO! Taunt, similar to the one used by the Horseless Headless Horseman and the ghost of Zepheniah Mann. He let out one of the Scout's high pitched death screams, that slowed me down to nearly his speed. He became faster and faster, and eventually Madcap caught up with me.

At first nothing happened, he just floated into me and I froze, unable to move like I was lagging. Then, the Pyro let out a garbled, digitized scream and exploded into gibs. The death notification in the corner of the screen said "Madcap Scout has claimed Pyro", when it should have showed my steam name. The screen snapped to Madcap's view, like a spectator mode. His vision made the map look lit up. The buildings looked burned and charred, as if they burned down decades ago. On a wall, there was 4 of the other mercs hung on it with what looked like some sort of pipe. From left to right, it was Scout, Heavy, Sniper, and Engineer. They looked like they had died years ago. Then, Pyro suddenly appeared on the wall. Or, at least what was left. Just Pyro's torso appeared. I heard Madcap say, "Shhhh... they're resting."

The next thing I knew, the screen went black, and I got the infamous "hl2.exe has stopped working" message on my screen. I tried to restart the game, but it wasn't working. De-fragmenting the cache files didn't help either. I had to completely re-install the game before it would work, and by then, despite my best attempts, I was unable to reconnect to this strange map.

Ever since then, the nightmares have gotten substantially worse... The Madcap Scout haunts me in my dreams, pursuing me relentlessly, calling out to me saying "It's okay to sleep now..." in that garbled, digitized voice. I don't know what it wants from me, and I really don't care at this point. Madcap Scout is pure evil, of that I am sure, and even if I knew what it wanted, I still would not indulge it. I'd rather die a free man than become its slave. However, my time draws near, I've resisted sleep for as long as I can, but soon, very soon... I will have to fall asleep, and face him one last time. I doubt that I'll make it through this time, or at least not with my sanity intact, so with the last remnants of my will and sanity, I urge you not to go looking on the Steam Workshop for this model. I'm not going to post the link here, but only so those of you who haven't seen it yet won't be doomed to the same fate as me. Also, it may just be delusions of my own addled mind, but part of me believes (or wants to believe) that since this is their game, that Valve could create a weapon that would destroy the Madcap Scout once and for all.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll just lay down and rest my eyes for a bit...

ClockworkSpirit2343