I didn't sleep much.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the alley from the video's point of view.
Black figure. Drunk girl. The friend's shaking phone. My own voice sounding wrong through the helmet.
When the sun finally dragged itself up, I gave up on pretending and checked Boovtoob.
The Masked Creep video had exploded.
Hundreds of thousands of views overnight. Comments stacked so thick the scrollbar turned into a suggestion.
Someone had uploaded a slowed-down, zoomed-in version.
Another had added ominous music.
Someone else already did a mock documentary voiceover about "Urban Legends in Our City."
I clicked on the original again, because I'm an idiot.
From start to finish, it made me look bad.
The cut was clean. You didn't see the guy's hand on the girl earlier. You didn't see the way her weight sagged when he dragged her.
All you saw was me stepping in from the edge of the frame, all black, helmet on. The man's voice insisting he was "just helping them." The friend's scream. The moment the girl fell against my chest, her face pressed to my jacket.
Pause there, and it looked bad enough.
Play it with someone else's caption, and it looked unforgivable.
HE WAS WAITING IN THE ALLEY WTF
Why is he dressed like that, that's not normal behavior
If you're drunk and see a guy like this, RUN
Name idea: The Masked Creep
This city is a horror game now lmao
The name was in almost every top comment.
The Masked Creep.
(So that's me now.)
I scrolled further.
A few people were skeptical.
Are we sure he's the bad one? We don't see what happened before they started filming.
Guy with the phone sure started recording at a convenient time.
They were buried under replies.
cope creep
weirdo spotted
nah if you defend this you're just like him
I closed the video. My heart was beating too fast for someone who hadn't moved from a chair.
Notifications pinged at the top of the screen, relentless.
Clips. Parodies. A meme page had already drawn a cartoon of me as a cartoon pervert lurking behind trash cans.
My phone buzzed. Manager.
I picked up.
"Morning," she said. "You seen the thing?"
"Yes," I said.
Short silence.
"You alright?" she asked.
Good question.
"I tried to help someone," I said. "It looks like I did the opposite."
"Internet context," she said. "People cut things. They tell the story that gets clicks. You know this."
"That's the problem," I said. "I know exactly how this works. I just saw it from the wrong side."
She sighed.
"Look, from a numbers perspective—"
"Don't start with that," I said.
"—from a numbers perspective," she continued anyway, "this is huge. Your face isn't in the video. No one sane thinks it's you. But you're in the same city, your fans are all over socials, this is going to come up."
"Brands will love being associated with a creepy alley guy," I said.
"There's some concern," she admitted. "But you know how it is. Outrage trends. Engagement goes up. A couple are nervous, a couple are already asking if you'll talk about it on stream tonight."
"Of course they are," I said. "Why waste a good panic."
"I'm not telling you to exploit it," she said. "I'm saying, be ready. You don't have to say anything clever. Just react like a normal person. 'This is scary, don't walk alone at night, take care of yourselves,' that kind of thing."
"React like a normal person," I repeated.
I wasn't sure I remembered how.
"And Michael," she added, softer, "don't be an idiot. I don't know what possessed you to ride around at night in full black, but maybe cool it until this dies down? The city's on edge. The last thing we need is you in a viral video."
Too late.
"Yeah," I said. "I'll… stay inside tonight."
We hung up.
I stared at the screen.
The Masked Creep was climbing the trending tab.
My own channel sat a few rows below, glowing with the little "popular" marker, live indicator grayed out for now.
Two different versions of me, rising together without knowing each other existed.
The irony was almost funny.
Almost.
I spent the afternoon doing normal things in a very abnormal way.
Laundry. Dishes. Cleaning up cables. All while glancing at my phone, watching numbers jump.
People tagged me in posts about the Creep.
@CancelledHero what do you think about this guy??
someone like you should talk about this tbh
probably a fan of yours, mask looks like your merch lol
Ridiculous. I didn't even sell helmets.
A few people made "jokes":
plot twist: it's actually him LMAO
Those comments got likes, then replies telling them to shut up, then arguments about whether I was tall enough to match the silhouette.
I watched strangers debate my height as if that answered anything.
By the time evening rolled around, my nerves were stretched thin. I set up for stream mechanically, hand movements automatic.
Camera. Lights. Mic check.
Title: "Reacting to the City's Latest Urban Legend (and some Q&A)".
Thumbnail: my face with a fake shocked expression, alley silhouette behind me with a big red circle and question marks. Classic low-effort bait.
I hated how easily it came together.
When I hit "Go Live", the static under my ribs lit up instantly.
Chat poured in.
WE'RE EARLY??
MASKED CREEP STREAM LET'S GO
bro you see the video right
HERO REACTION TIME
"Hey," I said, smile locked in place. "You all good? Staying safe? Not letting guys in helmets drag you into alleys, I hope?"
Spam.
LMAO, NOPE, PROTECT US, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM.
I played the usual intro, music low, just enough to make it feel like any other stream.
Inside, my hands were cold.
"So," I said, "I'm guessing you're here because of that video. The one with… what are people calling him? The Masked Creep?"
They flooded emotes with masks, black hearts, trash cans.
"Nice," I said. "Very subtle naming work from the internet as always."
I pulled the video up on screen. The chat exploded again.
NOOO
IM SCARED
FULL SCREEN IT
I hit play.
From this angle, it felt like watching a movie about someone else's mistake.
The alley. The drunk girl. The cheap jacket guy. Me stepping into frame like a badly written antagonist.
My chest tightened, but my face stayed neutral. Years of content creation had taught me how to separate those two.
When the girl fell against my chest, the chat went feral.
WTF
SHE'S CLEARLY UNCOMFORTABLE
KILL IT WITH FIRE
WHY IS HE JUST STARING
I paused the frame.
"Alright," I said. "First impression: this is scary. I don't like it."
Truest thing I'd said all day.
"I don't know what happened before this person started filming," I went on, careful. "But from what we see, it's bad. You don't follow drunk women into alleys. You don't keep wearing a full helmet so no one can see your face. That's… yeah."
People spammed agreement.
THANK YOU
SAY IT LOUDER
HE'S SO CALM TOO THAT MAKES IT WORSE
I wanted to say, "He wasn't calm inside."
I wanted to say, "He stepped in because someone else was worse."
Instead, I scrubbed back a couple of seconds.
"Just to be fair," I said, "do you think there's any chance he was trying to help?"
The chat split.
No.
He looks like a creep, end of.
Maybe but then why is his body language like that??
Helping people doesn't require looking like a horror movie character
"I'm not defending him," I said quickly. "I'm just saying, in general, videos like this never show the whole story. So be careful with instant judgment. But also, if someone gives you a bad feeling, trust that feeling and get out."
There. That balanced enough?
Wrong. Half of them heard the caution part, half heard the tiny doubt and decided I was "too nice".
Of course he tries to see the good in people
HERO BRAIN
idk dude looks guilty af idc what comehero says
I let the video run through once more, then closed it.
The static in my chest was roaring now.
Being live already amplified it, but this was different.
It wasn't just my viewers' attention on me-as-Michael.
Some part of it was aimed at me-as-Masked-Creep, through the video they'd just watched. A double reflection. Fear, outrage, fascination, disgust—all of it tied to that dark silhouette.
Both of those people were me.
The energy in my body felt wrong. Too big for my frame. My fingers twitched with the urge to move, to do something, anything.
I forced myself back into the usual routine. Read donations. Answered safe questions. Pretended my heart wasn't beating against my ribs hard enough to shake the camera.
Two hours later, I ended stream.
"Stay safe," I said. "Walk with friends, call a cab, don't go down alleys with strangers. Goodnight."
I killed the feed.
The silence after a stream is always sharp. This time, it hit like someone had pulled the plug on a life support machine.
The roar in my chest dimmed to a dull hum. Enough to feel, not enough to use.
I sat there staring at my own offline logo.
From a purely cynical, statistical point of view, it had been a fantastic stream.
Viewership spiked. New subs. Comments in all caps. The VOD was already climbing the chart.
I'd done exactly what brands wanted: reacted responsibly, said calming things, steered the panic into safety tips.
At the same time, the other me—the Masked Creep—had gotten even more famous.
People clipped my reaction side by side with the alley footage.
Some praised me.
Some joked that I was "jealous of the competition for hero/villain roles."
None of them knew the two silhouettes belonged to the same guy.
I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.
I had wanted attention all my life. Wanted to be seen, heard, remembered.
Now I had a power that pulled eyes where I pointed.
When I pointed it at videos, they exploded.
When I pointed it at people, they froze, panicked, moved.
Tonight, it had pointed back at me, without my consent, through a frame I didn't control.
I thought of the guy in the alley. The one who ran. How easily he erased himself from the story just by leaving the frame at the right time.
The internet didn't care about who started what or who made the first bad decision. It cared about who looked worst on camera.
I'd spent years playing that game from the safe side.
Now I knew exactly how sharp it could cut.
A bitter laugh slipped out.
"You wanted to be a hero," I told myself. "You got a mask and a bike and went looking for trouble like an idiot. The world gave you a name. Just not the one you asked for."
Masked Creep.
The name was ugly. Cheap. Designed to be easy to say, easy to remember, easy to throw around as a joke.
It would stick.
Names always did.
I stood up and walked to the corner where I'd dropped the helmet earlier. Picked it up. Turned it in my hands.
Behind the visor, my reflection warped and stretched.
If I put it away now, the story would go on without me.
In a week, someone else would trend.
In a month, the Masked Creep would be just another meme people regretted laughing at, maybe.
The girl from the alley would still be alive. That part I had done right, even if nobody knew it.
I could end it there.
Keep streaming. Keep talking about kindness and mental health. Be the safe hero on the screen who never enters alleys.
My hands tightened on the helmet.
The memory of that moment when everyone's attention slammed into me—when the man stopped, when the friend looked, when the drunk girl's eyes cut through her haze—burned in my spine.
That was the first time I had felt truly strong in real life. Not behind a camera, not in numbers on a web page. In a concrete space with real people.
And they had still chosen the wrong villain.
That unfairness lodged under my ribs like a splinter.
"If this is how it works," I muttered, "then I just have to get better at using it."
It wasn't the noble thought I should have had.
It wasn't "I'll clear my name" or "I'll make them see the truth".
It was more practical. Smaller. Meaner.
If stories were going to lie no matter what I did, then I had to learn how to lie louder.
If attention would always twist, then I had to twist it first.
I set the helmet back down carefully.
Not tonight.
Probably not tomorrow.
I'd been reckless once. I'd paid for it with a new urban legend.
Next time, if there was a next time, I would choose the frame, not stumble into someone else's.
The Masked Creep existed now, with or without my consent.
I wasn't sure yet if I would kill him, hide him, or learn how to wear him properly.
But as long as the city kept watching, I wasn't going back to being invisible.