Cryptid Hunter: The Mara

Some of you may be wondering why there's a casket laying on a table in the middle of our office. I'll debrief you now on what happened last night.

There was this girl, Laurie. 20 years old. Slender, 5'7", shoulder length brown hair. Real sweet girl next door type. This was a girl that loved Halloween. She loved candy and pumpkins and scary movies. And every fall she would work at the local haunted house. Over time she worked every role. First she was a cashier, and then a scare actor. Some days she would jump out at people and scream. Other times she would slide across the floor on knee pads or would slowly walk through a room in costume saying creepy lines.

And then one day she was told her role would be a torture victim. Laurie showed up early. The room was made to look like a torture chamber. She wore little black gym shorts and a white tube top that she had already smeared with fake blood.

Laurie usually would have passed the time by using her phone, but they weren't allowed to carry their phones on duty. So she figured she may as well get into position. She laid on her back on the wooden table and wiggled her wrists and ankles into the rope loops. They were meant to look convincing from a distance without needing to actually be tied or untied each time an actor used them, and all guests would have to stay at a distance.

She had to reach up over her head to work her wrists into the loops. She lay there spread eagle, waiting for the actor playing the torturer to show up. She was feeling bored. She'd just wait another minute before she'd get up and try to track down her coworker... and then she fell asleep.

Laurie woke with a start. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She felt utterly paralyzed. Even worse, there was some kind of dark presence on top of her, weighing down her chest.

She then saw that someone was sitting on her chest. Someone hunchbacked and hideous, some kind of goblin or demon. She might have thought it was one of the other scare actors in costume. But that couldn't be true. The figure was too small and too heavy. Nobody had a costume that looked like that - or was that convincing. And most of all... she couldn't ignore the deep-seated sense of foreboding. Some instinct deep within her that told her this figure was dark and dangerous and beyond her understanding.

Laurie wanted to struggle. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yell at the monster to go away. She wanted to beg it not to hurt her. But her body refused to obey. She couldn't move a muscle, and that made it all the more terrifying.

The creature fiddled with the ropes around her wrists. Its crooked, ugly fingers moved with odd dexterity and speed, tightening the ropes and adding knots that Laurie was certain would be very secure. The ropes around her ankles felt tight as well. The monster must have been binding her while she was asleep.

You all know what the monster is, don't you? Any cryptid hunter worth their salt would immediately recognize the signs. I have no doubt that anyone working for me here at the Daily Hunt can identify this.

Well?

That's right. A nightmare. A mara. They sneak into people's homes while they're sleeping, giving them terrifying dreams and feeding on their fear. They paralyze people, sometimes sitting heavily on their chests, to scare them even further. Western science has made up the term "sleep paralysis" to try to explain it away. They claim it's a natural phenomenon that can be scientifically proven to have nothing to do with "mythical" monsters. But we cryptid hunters know the truth, no matter what their "evidence" and "instruments" say.

To a fear-eater like the mara, a haunted house attraction is a tantalizing buffet. Just one problem. The mara is naturally drawn to sleeping people. Those who are harmless and can't fight the mara. This one could have been circling around the haunted house for a week, wanting to come closer so it could feed properly, but not daring to enter.

Not until one Halloween-loving girl dared to fall asleep within the haunted house itself. Poor Laurie.

Maras are shape-changers. This makes it easy for them to enter practically any room, unseen. They love to take on terrifying appearances.

They also love to tie knots. In some parts of the world, people recognize that a mara has been in the area by how a woman's hair or a horse's tail or even entire trees have been tied into knots.

Tying the ropes to make sure poor Laurie had no hope of escape was child's play.

The mara's paralysis never lasts long. Once a victim wakes up, the mara flees before long, as the paralysis usually only takes moments to wear off. This mara was clever enough to recognize the priceless treat it had. One terrified girl, tied down and unable to get away... and an entire building full of people who would not interfere and whose fear would just be amplified by what happened to Laurie.

Laurie didn't understand any of this. She's just a mundane. An innocent girl who never imagined the terrifying things in the dark that have crept into our world from Alfheim. All she knew was that some kind of monster was on top of her and that she couldn't escape. She stared at the mara on her chest in helpless terror.

The torture room had large, black candles for effect. The creature jumped off Laurie to run off somewhere, and in a moment was back on top of her tying ropes to some of the candles. The lit candles dangled in the air over their heads. Then the mara grabbed Laurie's tube top and yanked it down, bouncing her beautiful C-cup breasts free. There were some guests outside the torture room, watching through a large pane of glass. They gasped in shock at that moment. The mara didn't care. It just jumped off the table and watched gleefully as the first hot, large drops of black wax fell on Laurie.

She pulled at her bonds and screamed. The hot wax stung on her tender skin! Then she realized she could struggle and could scream. To an extent, anyway. Her movements were sluggish. Her scream was inarticulate. Her tongue felt thick and lazy. She could make primal noises, but had no hope of saying anything intelligible. She squirmed and tugged uselessly on her bonds. She tried to twist or move to somehow avoid the falling wax, but it was useless. She was bound too tightly. Every few seconds another drop landed, making poor Laurie feel like her skin was scalded. The worst was the anticipation. She would stare up at the candles, watching a blob of wax grow larger and larger and start sliding off the candle, knowing it was about to hit her.

Then she heard a loud sudden zapping, crackling noise. She would have jumped if she weren't still tightly tied down to the board. Her eyes grew wide. The mara was holding red and black alligator clips that seemed to be part of jumper cables. She tapped them together and they sparked in a very flashy, noisy way.

Laurie was aware that they were just props. Just for show. They couldn't really hurt her. They weren't ACTUALLY torture implements... right?

Laurie didn't know that the mara could change people's perceptions in ways that made what they saw and felt even scarier. That's where nightmares came from. The mara could do much less with a victim who was wide awake, but it could definitely make Laurie feel whatever it wanted to.

The mara moved the alligator clips slowly to Laurie, cackling evilly all the while. The poor girl screamed in terror, still unable to form words. She tried to pull her knees up to her chest but only succeeded in chafing her ankles against the tight bonds.

Then the mara touched the alligator clips to Laurie's feet and she felt electricity tear through her body. She thrashed and screamed and screamed. The guests watching winced in sympathy. Some hurried off to other parts of the haunted house that would hopefully be less scary.

The mara pulled the clips away. Laurie stopped clenching every muscle in her body and sagged in her bonds.

Then the mara started bringing the clips closer again - this time towards Laurie's thighs. She shook her head vigorously and tried to plead for mercy. The paralysis had worn off and she could talk again, but she was so scared that she was largely incoherent. Mostly she said "please" and "no" a lot.

The mara kept torturing her and threatening her. It tilted the torture table, putting her feet above her head, causing the blood to rush to her head and disorienting her further. Laurie was in constant terror. The mara amplified that fear, in Laurie and everyone nearby. And Laurie's hoarse screams caused everyone else in the building, staff and guests, to be afraid... even though they thought it was an act, that the torture was simulated.

It was about then that we arrived on the scene. People had been posting on social media about the feeling of dread and terror they had just getting close to the building, and how very realistic the screams were. How it was so terrifying that many people had to leave. Once we had someone on site we were able to quickly establish that a nightmare was operating and we developed a plan. Fortunately, Laurie was keeping the mara busy indefinitely, which gave us time to get what we needed.

Once we were ready, we pulled the fire alarm and worked to make sure everyone got out of the building. Everyone but Laurie and the mara, that is. Once people got far enough away, the mara was no longer feeding on their fear - although poor Laurie herself was a banquet of fear for the beast. I felt no fear for a simple mara, and the rest of the team held it together, with a little psychic support from my captive succubus.

The mara didn't even seem to notice us setting up right in the torture room. It was having too much fun. By this point one of Laurie's legs was elevated instead of being tied to the table. A rope was tied to her ankle, went up into the air, through a pulley, and down around her neck. She had to struggle to keep her leg elevated to avoid strangling herself. Her eyes were filled with terror. Her leg was getting tired. She was getting lightheaded.

I ordered the succubus to begin. A mara can psychically influence people, feeding them hallucinations and amplifying their terror. A succubus is much more psychically powerful and can be much more sophisticated. Laurie's mind was her playground, and she knew exactly what to do.

Laurie's nipples stiffened. Her sex suddenly became soaked with her arousal. In a matter of moments, being tied down and tortured was the most intensely arousing thing the girl had ever experienced. She loved being in strict restraints. She had never wanted anything more in her entire life. Being essentially naked and on display in a public place was the secret fantasy she had always had, but had never been able to live out. Being an immobilized decoration was suddenly her life's dream. And as for the torture... hot wax, electric shocks, pinched nipples, predicament bondage, breath play... these all suddenly became intensely, overwhelmingly hot to her.

Laurie's eyes rolled back in her head and she orgasmed harder ever than she ever had in her life, convulsing against her bonds. The succubus, by altering what aroused Laurie, had banished every trace of fear in her. There was no terror, only pleasure.

The mara reeled. Mere minutes ago it had been dining on the richest meal of its existence - not just the fear from one extremely terrified and helpless girl, but from an entire building of scared humans. Now suddenly it was in an empty desert, and the psychic shock threw it off-kilter.

Then it clearly realized there was one and only one source of fear nearby. Inside a wooden crate on the floor - ok, more of a coffin shape, but I'd rather call it a crate. In that crate we had a cryptid the team had picked up recently. An elf maiden. Like all elves, she was extremely vulnerable to iron. Iron chains and shackles kept her completely helpless, nullifying her magic.

And she was claustrophobic. The elf was naked, chained up and in a small, dark crate, the walls pressing against her on both sides. She had been locked in that box in darkness, knowing she had absolutely no way to get out, and she had been listening to Laurie's intense screams for minutes. To say she was agitated would be an understatement.

As Laurie struggled to remain conscious, the mara dove for a conveniently placed hole in the crate. It instantly transformed into a mouse and ran into the hole.

That's when I slapped a piece of wood over the hole and used a cordless drill to screw it tightly in place, while I yelled at the team to untie Laurie, who was almost unconscious from the rope around her neck.

Once the mara's original point of entry was securely blocked, I drilled some air holes in the top of the crate. The mara had taken a new shape. I couldn't quite see what it was, but it was something dark and with tentacles. I could also see the elf maiden's terrified eyes. I think she was begging for help, but couldn't be sure - there was a tentacle down her throat.

Carrying a coffin-shaped box out of a haunted house didn't attract all that much attention.

As for Laurie, we got her untied and hydrated. She was embarrassed by how much she had soaked her gym shorts with her arousal. No matter. I used the succubus to tweak her memories a little. It had been an ordinary fake torture scene for her, with a coworker she didn't know well playing the part of the torturer. The scene had hit so many of her perverted hot buttons that she had a spontaneous orgasm. Embarrassed, she was going home early. She had no idea that anything supernatural had happened. Laurie would be fine. Well, for the rest of her life she would have some pretty extreme, kinky fantasies. Normal sex would never be able to satisfy her. We've checked in on her and she's gotten into the habit of tying herself up tightly, clamping her nipples, and even using a dog's shock collar on herself as she masturbates. So really, no harm done at all.

To cover up what happened, we singed some paper decorations, placing lit candles nearby, which would explain why the fire alarm had been pulled. Then to make sure nobody suspected a mara, we prepared a story about a salamander in the building - the cryptid, not the amphibian. We gave a few bystanders false memories of vaguely seeing a large lizard rushing by. We sprinkled some ash on the ground and used an ink stamp to make fake lizard prints on the ground. Ridiculous, obviously fake stuff. The story about a salamander, blazing with fire, running around the haunted house and making people panic will run in today's issue of the "Daily Hunt." Only the most ridiculously credulous people will believe it. We have thoroughly muddied the waters as to what actually happened.

Now, back to this wooden crate... yes, the elf is still in there. Yes, the mara is still in there. I've made larger holes, so everyone, go ahead and gather around and take a look.

You'll see two beautiful, naked women in the coffin-shaped crate, one of them with pointed ears. See how they are face to face against each other, without any room in the crate for them to pull apart.

You know mara are shapeshifters, so you are likely wondering why the mara hasn't escaped. The elf is completely helpless in the grip of iron, but the mara could have changed into a small form and gotten out through any of the holes I've drilled, right?

Here's a fun bit of mara lore. When they enter a room or other enclosure, they must exit the space through the exact same hole. If the way is blocked, they are trapped. They cannot unblock the hole. They cannot use another exit. And then at dawn, they turn into their natural shape... that of a beautiful woman. There are legends of people who have caught and married maras this way. If a friend is in the room while the mara is tormenting a sleeping person, and the friend blocks up the keyhole or other entrance the mara used, then presto, the mara is all yours and can go all over town without being able to use her supernatural abilities. All you have to do is make sure she never gets the chance to pass through that specific opening again.

So you can see our ladies are well trapped here. I'm about to take them to the mansion of our wealthy benefactors. Billy and Milly are quite eager to see them before they are transported back to Alfheim. In fact, when Milly heard about what the mara did to Laurie, she was very taken with the idea of doing all those things to the mara...

There, did you hear that scream of protest from the crate? The mara understands the language of her captors.

Milly will have a great time replicating the torture room scene. Restraining the mara, giving her electric shocks, dripping hot wax on her, choking her... she might even come up with some new things to try.

As for the elf... I don't know what Milly will do with her... but knowing Milly's twisted imagination, I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up in a replica of an iron maiden. Surrounded by iron, having to hold perfectly still lest she get pierced by spikes. Perhaps she'll be able to look out through a small opening to see the mara writhe and scream. Just before Milly closes a metal plate over that opening, locking the claustrophobic elf in darkness...

Anyway, that's how the haunted house mission went! Everyone get back to work. We have stories to write and a tabloid to publish. And I have two captive monster girls to deliver.