Heehoo Simping go brrr

It has been a few weeks since you were captured by Heehoo, claimed as his “mate”. He hasn’t made any advances on you, but he has gone above and beyond to try and care for you. Gradually, he has let the chain attached to your shackle get longer and longer, allowing you better range of motion around the cave. He notices which foods he forages that you prefer eating, even bringing back what you assume to be food he stole from camps. Otherwise, you have no idea how he foraged a partially eaten package of Oreos. Heehoo has also tried to show you how to help yourself, survive out here in the wilderness. It’s fascinating to see how close he is to average human intelligence, makes you wonder if he had been exposed to more human speech, if he would be able to integrate well.

He has gone out on another hunt after noticing your meat reserves are low. You try to entertain yourself with weaving, making baskets out of the tall grass of the nest to hold the various berries and nuts that he brings back. You shift, the rattle of the chain bringing your attention back to the shackle around your ankle. It looks older, clearly rusted from being weathered. You grab a nearby twig, sticking it in the hole and shimmying it inside the lock. After a bit of work, you hear a click, and the shackle comes open. You sit there, staring at it for a moment before getting up, rubbing your ankle. You look towards the entrance of the cave, calculating how long you have until he comes back. He’s an advanced hunter, and he knows these lands far better than you.

But you have to try.

Pacing your breathing, you move quickly out of the cave. Heading in whatever direction you can, hopefully towards civilization. Even just a camp would suffice. Once you have what feels like enough distance between you and the cave, you slow down, not wanting to waste your energy. Foolishly, you didn’t grab anything like provisions to help you survive if you’re on your own for a few days. Fuck. Hopefully you recognize anything that Heehoo has brought back for you.

A couple hours of wandering aimlessly leads you nowhere, but you hear a deep roar echo through the trees. Fuck. You kick into high gear, sprinting again as you look for any place to hide. No caves, burrows, or fallen logs stand out to you. Gotta keep moving then. Thundering footsteps and the sounds of trees falling terrify you as they get closer. You duck behind some rocks, hand over your mouth as you sob in fear. Your whole body is shaking, anticipating him finding you and smashing your skull against the very rocks you’re hiding behind.

You hear the telltale pattern of his run stop nearby, him growling as he starts looking around. He sniffs the air, probably following your scent. Oh you’re screwed if that’s the case. The twigs and leaves crunch under his weight, letting you hear how close he gets.

“Mate.”

You open your eyes to see him standing over you, glaring daggers. But he’s not baring his teeth or growling at you. If anything he seems annoyed at best. He stands there, as if expecting you to explain yourself.

“I-I need hu-umans. Ne-ew clothes-s.”

Heehoo looks at you, tilting his head as he squints.

“Heehoo fix. Mate stay.”

You’re surprised at how well he took that. You nod, not exactly sure what you agreed to.

“Chain bad. Mate stay. Bring hunt.”

“Y-Yeah, I’ll go hunting with you.”

Heehoo lets out a “hrrmmph” and picks you up, setting you on his back to hold onto him. You wrap your arms around his neck, and he takes off towards the cave again. Once you’re back, he places you back in the nest.

“No trust. Mate run. Bad.”

Despite his words, he smashes the shackle under the rock it was tied to. You spot the carcass of a deer over on a rock slab, most likely for him to cut apart so it can be cooked and dried.

“Heehoo fix. Mate stay.”

The reality of the situation sets in, he’s asking you to stay. Logically, you know there’s no way you’re making it out of here alive. Either he’ll bring you back or the wilderness will kill you. But he seems to want to make this more comfortable for you. Get you what you need.

“I’ll need a water source. To clean my clothes.”

“River near. Heehoo take.”

“And I need more things to do. Maybe I can build things, like a place for me.”

He nods, thinking. Heehoo leaves briefly, coming back with the assumedly fallen trees from when you escaped. He places them outside, stacked too tall for you to climb, but he can still make it out.

“I’m willing to make this work. But I’m not like you. I need human interaction.”

“Heehoo find. No worry.”

You’ve been out here in the middle of the jungle for a couple months now, gathering research for your thesis on cryptozoology. You thought there was no better way to make a name for yourself in the cryptid community than to prove the existence of one of the most elusive creatures in the world. Heehoo. A large fifteen foot humanoid with seemingly primitive levels of intelligence and a supposed thirst for blood. A dangerous creature for sure, but the risk for notoriety at this point is worth it. A few research teams have gone missing in the area, no conclusive evidence as to what happened to them other than the carnage of a few campsites found in the depths of the woods.

True rest of your team came with you with only one goal, to kill Heehoo. No greater evidence than bringing him in, and he’s far too dangerous to be brought in alive. It feels like a military camp, walking around and seeing the gross amount of weapons and traps everywhere. You disagree with their methods, but it was the only way you were given any grant money to do this research. You brought food for lures, hoping to capture pictures or collect other evidence of his existence.

Since you’re already well aware of the risks, going out alone doesn’t scare you nearly as much. You already know this trip is essentially a death sentence. But maybe someone will find your camera. You get to the clearing you found, bags of takis and slabs of meat in the center, and set yourself up for the night to watch from your hiding spot. Your camera is ready, as well as several others you’re monitoring on your tablet.

After a few hours, you hear gunfire and screaming. You sprint back to camp, finding the rest of your team brutally murdered and partially dismembered. Most of your supplies are smashed and broken. The hair on the back of your neck raises, backing away slowly until you hit something. Heavy breathing and growls is all you can hear over the sounds of the forest. Slowly looking up, you are face to face with Heehoo, and he doesn’t look happy.

“FUCK-“

You try to run, but you’re quickly grabbed around the waist and picked up, held at eye level for him. Your arms are pinned, unable to reach your camera.

“…mate.”

Heehoo nods to himself, throwing you over his shoulder by your ankles, leaving it impossible for you to right yourself. While you’re grateful he hasn’t given you the same fate as the rest of your team, a different kind of fear sets in.

“N-No, no mate-“

“Mate. Mine.”

You shudder, feeling his grip tighten around your ankle. Your ankle pops from all the pressure, and no amount of kicking with your other foot is making him let go. You don’t know how long you’ve been walking for, but he brings you into a cave. There’s stockpiles of food, a large nest of various materials, and what looks to be the discards of old trapping attempts. He sets you down on the nest, taking a shackle and putting it around your ankle. He then wraps it around a rock, keeping you on a very short tether.

“Stay. Heehoo care.”

“I-ai can’t li-ive like this-“

“Stay.”

He has plopped himself in front of you, eyeing the device in your hand. A curious squint has painted his expression and a wary hand in case it jumpers to attack him is placated between the two of you. The object in your hand? Your phone.

You start with simple stuff at first, showing him music you think he’d like, games that aren’t too stimulating. There’s something rather adorable about a large man attempting to use a phone that’s far too small for him, but he holds himself with a certain kind of gentleness that you’ve only observed him use with you. This is your thing, and clearly it’s important to you. He looks almost honored that you would like to show him this.

For being good, you offer him a bag of Takis, which he grunts a “thank you” as he leans back, inviting you to lay against him. You sneak a selfie of the two of you to use as your lock screen. Unfortunately the cryptid effect seems to have affected him, and he’s rather blurry in the photo. But there’s a part of you that pings with anxiety at someone seeing him on your phone, and coming out to find him. Humans are unkind to beings like him, but you try to be different.

Heehoo was… a strange one, to say the least. Dark blamed Annus, but the Time god shifted the blame to Mark, which led to Dark having to meet with his creator, who blamed Ethan, who then blamed Unus. Unus was unreachable, which led to Dark’s current predicament.

“Artie…” Dark pinched the bridge of their nose in frustration. “Arthur, he is not a dog-”

Artie looked up at Dark with a smile as he pet the…creature(?)’s head. “But look at him!“

Dark squinted against his building headache. “I am, Arthur, and he’s most definitely not a dog. He’s not even an animal. He’s…” He frowned, unsure how exactly to explain what Heehoo was to the “youngest” ego.

Artie had found Heehoo while Dark was trying to find the culprit for his creation. Dark now wished he’d taken Heehoo with him as he watched Artie lead the the surprisingly calm feral being towards the kitchen.

“…What the hell-“

Dark turned to find Mike watching the strange duo walk away. “My thoughts exactly.”

Heehoo was not a calm creature, and this was found out the hard way. Dark ended up dumping him in the forest with strict instructions to Illinois and Cam to make sure he was fed and watered daily.

The reason you were here in these woods was simple.

You were looking for a legend. Well, sort of a legend. A myth in part.

Honestly, okay, you were out here on a stupid dare from your friends in the middle of the night, looking for trouble.

See, you were the most comfortable with camping, having done it several times before, but most of your friends didn't understand what it was like to just disconnect from the internet. The idea gave several of them pause, and you couldn't really blame them. Why would they do that, if they didn't have to? There was safety in numbers, and you...

Well, you bragged that you've done solo camping trips where your phone was only maybe able to get any sort of signal in case of an emergency.

In hindsight, that wasn't the best idea, nor was it to agree, even jokingly, to it. At least they came with you, helped set up your camp, made sure they knew where you were, so if something terrible did happen, they wouldn't be combing the massive woods for days. Hopefully nothing would happen.

The second part of this was because you had overheard them talking about a local legend. A wild man in the woods.

"Some people say he used to be a god, some local nature deity forgotten by time. People keep saying they see him show up in different parts of the world."

"Oh, c'mon, that sounds like Bigfoot."

"But for real, I heard he's more like a cryptid, though! Because he's way too big to be a person."

You couldn't help yourself, the skeptical mind coming to the front over anything else. "Has anyone actually seen him or taken photos?"

"Photos of the Heehoo?" You had to struggle to not laugh at the ridiculousness of the name, with the weight in which they spoke it, like if they said the name, he'd appear.

"No one's seen it and lived!"

"Some people take photos, but they're so blurry you can't make out what's supposed to be on them."

You scoffed, and thus the dare was born.

Which is how it was nearly midnight as you sat by your crackling fire, enjoying the solitude of the woods. It was beautiful out here, the air just crisp enough that the fire was comfortable to sit near, the stars peeking through the canopy overhead. It was peaceful. But over time, you became...aware. The noises of insects quieted around you, the soft hooting of an owl going silent. Every nighttime woodland noise that is easy to dismiss when it becomes a quiet background song has faded back to nearly nothing. And you are aware.

Aware of eyes on you, watching you, tracking your movements. You really hope it's not a bear, because you did your best making sure your camp was safe from that, but versus a determined bear? You really couldn't do much. You listened, trying to track the movement right back, listening to how the underbrush shifted and sighed, the soft crunch of tiny twigs and the hush of pine needles...

And he stepped forward, on two legs but hunched forward, to use his arms as a support as he paused and leaned forward further. Scenting the air like a dog, dark eyes piercing. He is tall, and muscular, and inches closer to you, as though he's afraid you might run. He glances down at your fire, and the simple meal, then back at you. Somehow, impossibly, you find your voice.

"Would...would you like some?"

He nods, sitting quite politely, all things considered. With shaking hands, you offer him the simple campfire meal, and breath out an incredulous sigh.

"Are...are you...Heehoo?"

He grunts with a nod.

Well.