The Rake (referred to as the "Feral Other" in Jeff's twitter diagram) is a creature from Creepy Pasta that originated from the website "Something Awful." When it first appeared in EMH viewers well-versed in creepypasta lore recognized The Rake due to its distinct appearance: human in form, but with canine movements, fitting the description from the original creepypasta. In EverymanHYBRID, its presence is usually accompanied by heavy breathing, whispering noises, and loud growls. The Rake is exceedingly strong, with sharp claws. Unlike Slenderman, it doesn't seem to affect electronic equipment. However, footage seems to blur when The Rake is caught on camera, or nearby. It has been concluded in Consensus that this was not The Rake's presence, but of technical failure. The Rake is implied to be connected to HABIT somehow, as evidenced by its attack on Ryan. It has attacked Alex, Evan, and Vince. It has killed Jessie, Ryan, and possibly others. It has been speculated to have been involved in attacks on Jeff and Alex's parents, Lexi, Linnie, and Jessie's granddmother Rose.
History
The Rake from "Cops Checked"
The first appearance of "The Rake", as it was dubbed by viewers, was in Cops Checked, No Body, on the EverymanHYBRID YouTube channel. The creature could be seen between the 7:17 and 7:19 marks in the video.
It is also speculated that The Rake has been stalking Alex, as personal messages to Alex have revealed that he claimed to have seen "a big white possum or something" in his house,[1] and in the video Does anyone elses dog do this?, Alex's dog Sparky wakes him up in the middle of the night, scratching at what appears to be the wall of his closet, accompanied by heavy breathing akin to that heard in "Cops Checked, No Body" around the appearance of The Rake. On Oct 28 Jeff posted to his twitter feed that some papers he had in his room had been shredded. A follow up video from Alex (Business Cards on a Plane) revealed that the shreds of paper had left a trail to his closet. Further, he revealed for the first time that there is a crawl space behind his closet and an acess to it on the back wall. This has added to the speculation that The Rake is either living in the closet or crawl space, or using it as an access point to the house.
On November 5 and 6 Alex uploaded two videos. The first, (VID000006.MP4) showed him silently dressing several severe wounds on his forearms. In the second (I'm Okay) he described an encounter with a "horribly disfigured thing" at the foot of his bed, after having been woken up by a foul odor. Through youtube PMs Unfiction forum member Didz confirmed with Alex that the creature he had seen was the same creature visible in the video "Cops Checked, No Body."
In the video "Alex", Evan announced that he received a USB disk containing video footage of Alex that seems to have been taken at the same time of VID000006.MP4. He noted that it was "like security camera footage" and that this was very odd because there are no security cameras in Jeff and Alex's house. He came over, discussed with Alex, and determined that Alex seen the same thing that Jeff and Vinnie saw in "Cops Checked, No Body": The Rake. After admonishing Jeff for not having noticed his brother's plight, Evan cleared the stuff away from Alex's closet doors to take a look inside the closet and connected crawl space. After seeing nothing, Evan closed the doors and started to say that even though he saw nothing, they should probably block off the closet or crawl space. However, there was the sound of a voice and the doors began shaking. This was unmistakably the Rake; listening to its vocalization here makes it sound as if it is saying "I am in here, Evan!" in response to Evan's claim of seeing nothing there. Another possibility is that it said "I am, The Rake". The video cut to the three guys sealing Alex's room by chaining its doorknob to that of an adjacent room.
Later at the end of A Day with Green Feathers video, Vince gets a panic call from Ryan. After he gets the call he says that Ryan got into a car accident and that he heard the noises. In the Ryan & the SEVENTRIALSOFHABIT Ryan is dead from the car accident with Jeff saying his body was totally scratched. Consensus is that Ryan was killed for breaking a tournament rule. In the 11/26 Ustream Vince says the noises he heard where like a "whisper", which many take as confirmation that Ryan was killed by The Rake. If true, this could mean that The Rake acts as an enforcer for HABIT, or maybe HABIT is The Rake.
It appears that The Rake has taken up residence in the shed in the back yard of Jeff and Alex's home. In the video One step forward, two steps back, Alex spots it in the back yard and runs out after it. Evan stops Alex before he enters the shed and Evan ends up fighting The Rake himself, resulting in several large wounds on his arms similar to the wounds seen on Alex earlier. It appears that The Rake has killed Sparky.
In May & June, HABIT sends a video clip of The Rake to the Hybrids, possibly as a form of intimidation. There is another clip of The Rake in -.-. in between the guys discussing how The Rake seems to attempt to kill Alex in earnest, but not go after them in the same manner even though it has had many chances to do so. They conclude that something (HABIT or Slenderman, possibly) is preventing it from killing them becasue that entity has its own plans for them.
In the video "Jim Thorpe" Jeff, Vince and Evan arrive at Jessie's home in Pennsylvania to find her door open and something happening inside the house. Evan goes in with a knife and engages an unseen attacker inside. A few minuteslater he appears to throw The Rake out of an upstairs window. After a moment of recovery The Rake attacks Vince who was standing nearby, until Jeff scares it with an airhorn. It was confirmed in the the next video (Jessie) that it had indeed killed Jessie. Jeff also confirms in that video that Slenderman prevented The Rake from further attacking the boys.
In Consensus Alex reveals to Vinnie that the Rake has again been visiting him while he sleeping and telling him things: prophecies, descriptions of Jessie's death, and so on. This casts doubt on the completely "feral" nature of The Rake and suggests that he may be more intelligent than previously believed. Alex suggested that The Rake had also told him something about the boys, but before he could reveal what it wasVince turned off the camera.
Notes
Screencap from the UStream
- It has been noted that in the UStream associated with Sleep Lab Part 1 something can be seen crawling around the doorway into the darkened room at the rear just after 19:30 - a couple of limbs emerge briefly, but move slowly back into the darkness, their movement being mildly reminiscent of the Rake's in "Cops Checked". Vince dons his Viking hat and goes to investigate (apparently in response to uStream viewers mentioning it), but comes back after a minute saying that he couldn't find anything. It has been speculated that this may in fact be the first appearance of The Rake in the series. Note that unlike The Rake's appearance in "Cops Checked" where it was clearly white, the creature seen in the Ustream seems to be wearing purple (reminiscent of The Purple Tape.) Other viewers have speculated that rather than The Rake this is an appearance of HABIT.
- In addition, one of the songs playing in the EverymanHYBRID crew's car on the way to Lambertville is "The Rake's Song" by The Decemberists.
- Wikia contributor IzarTalon discovered in Alex's video Does anybody elses dog do this? two distinct audio tracks can be heard whispering (Left and Right audio channels) something like "help brother" and "I can't breath." In the video Cops Checked, No Body the same audio can be heard during The Rake's brief appearance.
- According to Evan in L'espirit de l'escalier, the Rake survived decapitation and its headless body continued to attack Evan, disemboweling him.
- In Three's company, when Vince ask if the cameraman can talk, he answer making a strange noise, just like Rake does in Jim Thorpe when he was about to attack Vince. If they have some kind of connection it still unknown.
Speculation
- Missing during the time that Evan was actively possessed, the Rake returned after Evan's break from HABIT's grasp. Which may indicate that HABIT possesses The Rake when not possessing a human host. Alternatively, they are the same type of creature.
- The creature/entity filming HABIT and Vince in :D, MOVING IN and Three's company is The Rake or have some connection with him, since HABIT calls "The Things (Cameramen)" "dog" and "creepy".
- It has been shown that this is not the case, as an MLAnderson video shows it to be close to human in appearance (and clothed).
References to the Original Creepypasta
The letter the crew discovers in Reunion. is almost certainly a direct response to a similar letter from the original creepypasta.[2] Given the crew's obvious love of internet culture, and some historic association between the Slenderman and the Rake in creepypasta lore, some believed, based on the evidence, that it would be a logical step for The Rake to appear. In the 11/26 Ustream, the guys mentioned that they only skimmed original creepypasta and had never heard of it before viewers sent it to them. They claimed to have trouble remembering any of the details from the original story.
Other characters mentioned in the original Rake creepypasta seem to have direct correlations to characters in EverymanHYBRID: Linnie, Rose, and William. Linnie is mentioned in the Corenthal Letter dated 10-27-1981 as a patient of Corenthal's not connected to the Mining Town Four. A letter from William to Linnie was found in the Bag. William and Rose were the names of Jessie's grandparents. Speculation is high that The Rake was involved in the killing of Rose. The police statement in the Rose Article states "this was not the work of a human attacker" and that local Animal Control had been alerted.
Alex's description of The Rake whispering prophecies to him is much more akin to The Rake's actions in the original creepypasta than has previously been described in this series.
Non-EMH Images
