I left off with those four proxies getting out of the cars. One of them was Javert; I didn’t recognize the other three. New faces; not anyone who had been part of Javert’s police force. Javert was in his black police uniform, but the others were dressed in regular street clothes. Let’s call these three Shaggy, Velma, and Scooby, because they reminded me of old cartoon characters. Okay, Scooby wasn’t a dog, but he was hairy enough that he could be called one. Javert led them to the front entrance, where Setoth had drawn his sigils in chalk. It was hard to tell from as high up as I was, but I’m pretty sure Javert told some kind of joke at the symbols expense before just stepping over it. I expected something to happen, something dramatic. But there was nothing. No bright flash of light, or ominous thunder, or anything. He stepped over the thing, like it was just lines of chalk.
Once they were inside…. Well, that was when the fun would begin. I’d spent hours memorizing the place, and knew all the spots where I could observe them secretly, so I could track their progress.
The four drew guns and split up (I could imagine Javert saying, “Alright gang, let’s split up!” followed by one of the proxies, probably Shaggy, saying something similar to “Zoinks!”). Javert, Velma and Scooby went straight for the stairs to the second floor, while Shaggy looked around the first.
Shaggy was the first to find one of my traps. A rope had been stretched across a doorframe, roughly at the level of the ankles. Shaggy saw it just before he tripped on the rope. Oh, that grin which appeared on his face; so full of pride at himself for seeing such an obvious trap, and amusement at the cartoonish nature of it. He was so satisfied in that small victory, that he didn’t notice me come up from behind until I was smashing his head in with my sword. Made sure he was dead; didn’t stop hitting until I saw brains.
Then I ran up to the second floor, which Velma and Scooby were searching. I assumed Javert had gone on ahead further up. The two on that floor saw me as I was running to the stairs, and Velma almost shot me in the face. I’ve got a little cut across my left ear where the bullet grazed by. They chased after me, following me up the stairs. When I reached the landing on the third floor, I stopped. Velma was halfway up the stairs, while Scooby was lagging behind. The stairs were narrow; only enough room for one person to go up at a time. Less dodging space for them. On the third floor landing, I had placed a barrel of cement (that thing was bloody hard to drag up three stories, I’ll have you know), which I rolled down the stairs towards Velma. Yeah, “Oho, how amusingly cartoonic, rolling a barrel down the stairs to attack someone!” You know what happens when a heavy barrel hits you in the ribs, knocks you down two flights of concrete stairs, and then crushes your head between it and the concrete wall on the first floor? The mess which Velma left was worse than Shaggy’s.
Tragically, Scooby proved to be surprisingly dexterous, and was able to move out of the way of the rolling barrel of doom. Once that threat had passed, he came charging up those stairs. He proceeded to frantically search the third floor, trying to find me. His attention was caught by movement he saw near an open window. Scooby quickly ran over to investigate, but found it to just be coat which had been nailed to the window frame, flapping in the breeze. Before he could turn from the jacket, I was behind him. I grabbed his right arm with both hands, and broke it at the elbow, making him drop his gun. Then I threw him out the window. Falling from three stories down into hard, unforgiving rubble…. Scooby could be called lucky, as it didn’t appear to kill him instantly. Still, based on his screams of pain, I doubt he’d have lived much longer. I grabbed the gun he’d dropped, and ran up the stairs.
Which just left Javert. The warm up was over, and the real show was about to begin.
The fourth floor was when the shoddy nature of the building’s construction began to really show; holes in the floors/walls, exposed piping, tools left lying around…. They hadn’t even finished making the stairs to the fifth floor, where Setoth was. You needed to use a ladder to reach it. When I reached the fourth floor, I came up just in time to see Javert climbing the ladder. I began to run after him, when I heard an inhuman shriek echo through the building. Then Porfiry appeared, out of nowhere, in the middle of the fourth floor.
He looked much the same as last time. Eyes gouged out, face burned, arm twisted, ribcage torn open to reveal the organs underneath…. I got only a few seconds to experience surprise before he charged at me. Like any sane person, I started shooting at him with the gun I’d taken from Scooby. Most of my shots went wild; I did manage to land two bullets in his chest, and hit him in the face when I threw the gun at him after running out of ammo. None of it seemed to bother him. He reached to strangle me, but I grabbed his arm and threw him onto his back. Pulled out my sword and swung it down at him, but he rolled aside and leapt back up. Charged at me again; I tried to knock him aside with my sword, but he ignored the blow and scratched at my face. The nails dug pretty deep, going straight across, barely missing my eyes. The second time he tried to claw at me, I bit the hand he was using. God, zombie Porfiry tastes awful. Succeeded in biting off three of his fingers, and then hit him in the eye with the hilt of my sword to force him to back off. Let’s see you claw out my eyes when you don’t have any fingers left on your hands….
As he always does, Porfiry launched another charge, tackling me into a concrete pillar. That left me dazed for a few seconds, during which time he bit into my right shoulder. Hurt like hell. I had to pull his face off of me, and then slammed it into the pillar repeatedly. Completely destroyed his nose, and part of his cheek bones, before he elbowed me in the gut hard enough to make me let go. Which was followed immediately afterward by him grabbing my throat with one hand, and squeezing. I tried breaking his arm, but even after I heard the bone snap, he kept squeezing. My vision started to go dark, as I couldn’t bring any oxygen into my lungs. I grabbed two of the exposed ribs poking out his side, and pulled on them. Kept pulling until I heard them snap; his grip loosened involuntarily then, just slightly, but enough for me to break free.
If I lived in a perfect world, I’d have been given the opportunity to catch my breath and massage the bruises I’d just gotten along my throat. However, I don’t live in a perfect world. Porfiry tried to pounce on me to resume the strangling; I kicked him in the chest and threw him over me, right through a hole in the flooring. When I looked down it to see what happened to Porfiry, he was lying on the ground, both legs broken, trying to pull himself along the floor. His face turned up towards me…. I don’t know how he can see with his eyes gouged out, but somehow he was looking at me…. And he screamed that high pitched, impossible shriek. I grabbed a large piece of masonry that was on the floor and pelted it at his head; it cracked the skull open. I don’t even know if that killed him; his body was still twitching on the floor, even as the brains leaked out of his skull. But at least it meant he wasn’t fighting.
And so, bleeding, exhausted, and in pain, I climbed up the ladder to confront Javert.
The fifth floor was the top of the building, and the least finished in terms of construction. Setoth was sitting in the center, surrounded by his magickal whatevers. Standing next to him, looking at the sigils with apparent curiosity, was Javert. He didn’t face me when I came up, but in spite of my attempts to be sneaky, could tell I was there.
Javert: “I suppose it’s a failing on my part. Even when He tells me to do so, I find myself unable to kill a man who cannot defend himself. And yet I must prevent his plan from succeeding. I wonder what would happen if I just tried to scuff out these symbols around him?”
Arkady: “I dunno, maybe he’d explode or something?” I have no idea what would actually happen, but I’m under the impression that it would be very, very bad.
J: “A jest. Very typical of you.” He finally faced me. “You know, Arkady, while my mission here is to stop this man from stealing a member of His kingdom, you are the real reason I have come. I’ve been waiting for a chance to fight you for a long time. A real fight this time; no outside interferences, no witnesses to avoid, just a battle to the end.”
A: “Good. We’re thinking the same thing.”
J: He pulled out his gun, looked at it with amusement for a moment, and then threw it out a window. “Let’s make this fair then?”
I immediately came to the conclusion that fighting fair is for chumps, and charged at him with my sword. He caught the swing with one hand. God I wish this thing had a blade on it. With his free hand, he punched me in the gut. Hard.
J: “I’ve been thinking about your reference to Heart of Darkness which you made. When you wrote that, did you stop to consider that Kurtz did not wish to be rescued?”
The sword was pulled out of my hands and throw aside. Javert then kicked me in the chest, knocking me back several feet.
A: I had to pant for breath a bit. Javert was polite enough to let me do so. “Fine, how about Orpheus descending into the underworld to save Eurydice?” I ran forward and swung at him.
J: After catching my fist and kneeing me in the chest “Do you really have such little confidence in your comrades that you would compare them to a myth where the hero failed?”
A: “Shut up, it was the first thing that came to mind!” This time, I did succeed in hitting him, punching him in the face. Which would have been a greater accomplishment had he not immediately struck back, knocking me to the ground.
J: “You’re putting up much less of a fight than I expected. Did Porfiry really give you that much trouble? I’m starting to wonder if you even beat him, or if you only made it up here after running away in fear.”
A: “Poor Porfiry’s had an accident.” I grabbed Javert’s leg, and pulled, causing him to fall to the ground. “SO MAY YOU ALL.”
Now I had the initiative. Before he could stand back up, I brought my foot down onto his head.
A: “Javert, Javert! You make the world by whispers, second by second. Are you blind to that? Whether you make it a grave or garden of roses is not the point. Feel the floor: is it not hard” I brought my foot down on his head again. “Hard, yes! Observe the hardness, write it down in careful runes. Now, sing of floors! Sing!”
When I tried to hit him a third time, he rolled aside, quickly stood up, and punched me in the face twice. Got a bloody nose from that.
J: “I dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.”
A: “Don’t you quote Dosteyevsky at me!” I tried to tackle him, but he grabbed me, flipped me over his shoulder, and threw me at a wall.
J: “If you are a man, Arkady, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent. The command of the old despotisms was Thou Shalt Not. The command of the totalitarians was Thou Shalt. Our command is Thou Art. There shall only be loyalty to He that Is.”
A: I was still lying against the wall, trying to recover.
“Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
J: “Milton?” He kicked me in the chest as I tried to get up. “I thought you would be better than something that obvious. I wonder, what would you think if you could see the wickedness and sin which you live in?”
A: “I would much rather prefer to be Lord Henry than Lord Gray.”
J: He seemed surprised for a moment. A rare moment. I wish I had a camera so I could remember it. “I wasn’t aware that you had read ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. We didn’t find a copy of it when we searched your apartment.”
A: “Got it from the St. Edwards Library here. You think I’m going to let being a fugitive on the run from your boss cut into my reading time?”
J: He laughed, cheerfully, almost as a friend would. “Good man! But enough of this. You’ve lost. And while I am not allowed to kill you….”He kicked me in the face, leaving me dazed. Before I could react, Javert grabbed my left arm, twisted, and pulled. I could feel the joint popping out of the socket…. Yeah, I screamed in pain. There isn’t anyone who wouldn’t have. “…. You don’t need to be wholly intact. Besides, you’re right handed. You don’t need your left arm to serve Him.”
A: In between gasps of pain
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!”
J: “Keep shouting your defiance. But now I must finish my task.”
He turned towards where Setoth should have been…. But there was no Setoth there. The circle of chalk was empty.
Suddenly, Setoth jumped out from the shadows, and hit Javert in the face with my sword. When Setoth tried for another swing, Javert grabbed Setoth’s wrist and twisted. Setoth screamed in pain, but that gave me a chance. Using my uninjured arm, I pulled myself up, and then charged him. I hit him in the back with my good shoulder; Javert turned around angrily to fight me, but in that time, Setoth struck him with the sword. The two of us began to attack Javert with everything we had in us. Javert struck back against us many times, punches, kicks, grapples, but we kept pressing him backwards. Whenever he gained the advantage over one of us, the other would leap forward and press Javert back.
Soon, he was at the edge of the building. There was a hole in the wall behind him, leaving nothing between Javert and a five story drop. Setoth and I were exhausted; both of us were badly beat up, and my dislocated shoulder was roaring in agony. We prepared for a final charge, to throw him over….
Javert looked back, into the dark drop. Then a small smile spread on his face. Javert took one step backwards, and fell down into the darkness. Setoth and I ran to the edge to see his fall, but the night hid it from us.
We left the building soon. Setoth said that something had forced him out of the Astral Plane, and he couldn’t get back in. Kal had been left on his own in there. I’m not sure how that’s going to turn out, him on his own in that place.
My arm’s been popped back into place, but it still hurts like hell. It might take a while to recover.
Now all we can do is wait to see if word comes back from Kal.
Previous/Next
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
A PLAN
Do we have a crazy party planned for you all tonight.
You see, Setoth has come up with a PLAN. A plan of a most glorious nature.
You remember that Kal guy? It seems I misjudged him. All signs pointed towards him giving in and becoming another pathetic victim, but then, at the sight of a child being taken by Slender Man, he gained a resolve I have seen in few others. And this has been no ordinary, mass produced resolve. He is not content to simply defy Slender Man through evasion and survival. No; this paragon of determination’s very first reaction was to contact Setoth and ask for a way to go after Slendy and get victims back. No thought, no hesitation, just a pure, glorious offensive, aimed to strike at the heart of the enemy.
As the occult is not an area I have much expertise in (if I had known that the supernatural would play such a large role in my life, I’d have dropped out of school and joined a cult), most of Setoth’s explanations were incomprehensible to me. Something about the Astral Plane, only not the Astral Plane, because they’d already checked there and didn’t find anything….
Yeah, when I heard Setoth say he and Kal had checked the Astral Plane, in the same tone he’d use to say he’d walked to his living room, I did a double take. I guess something like that isn’t much of a big deal to a genuine practicing occultist? Or perhaps Setoth just drank a wee bit too much of his absinthe and the entire conversation I just had with him was me listening to a drunken rant? If so, damn Setoth, you are a crazy drunk.
Anyways, what Kal wants to do is go into this Not-Astral Plane place, and wreck Slendy’s shit. Since Kal’s experience with magick is only slightly better than mine (although to be honest, there are probably rocks out there which know more about magick, Crowley, and the occult than I do), Setoth is going to be doing most of the work for this. Apparently Setoth being in Texas and Kal being in Colorado doesn’t matter for this ritual thing Setoth has planned. He said it was because of something about orbits, or maybe it was aeons, or….. ARGH, THIS STUFF MAKES QUANTUM STRING THEORY LOOK SANE.
The part where I come in has thankfully little to do with this abracadabra stuff. While Setoth’s tromping around in the Not-Astral Plane place, his body in boring old regular world is going to be a vegetable. During that time, he’ll be vulnerable. It’s very unlikely that Slendy would just sit back and let Setoth do whatever he pleases, and with Javert in the city, things might get a bit dangerous. Therefore it’s my job to make sure nothing violent happens to Setoth while he’s handling stuff.
I have to say, I’m getting really excited about this. We’ve already picked the locale: a partially finished construction site, five stories tall, with plenty of hazards and dangers which I may use to entertain any guests who show. And I really do hope that we get guests tonight.
Previous/Next
You see, Setoth has come up with a PLAN. A plan of a most glorious nature.
You remember that Kal guy? It seems I misjudged him. All signs pointed towards him giving in and becoming another pathetic victim, but then, at the sight of a child being taken by Slender Man, he gained a resolve I have seen in few others. And this has been no ordinary, mass produced resolve. He is not content to simply defy Slender Man through evasion and survival. No; this paragon of determination’s very first reaction was to contact Setoth and ask for a way to go after Slendy and get victims back. No thought, no hesitation, just a pure, glorious offensive, aimed to strike at the heart of the enemy.
As the occult is not an area I have much expertise in (if I had known that the supernatural would play such a large role in my life, I’d have dropped out of school and joined a cult), most of Setoth’s explanations were incomprehensible to me. Something about the Astral Plane, only not the Astral Plane, because they’d already checked there and didn’t find anything….
Yeah, when I heard Setoth say he and Kal had checked the Astral Plane, in the same tone he’d use to say he’d walked to his living room, I did a double take. I guess something like that isn’t much of a big deal to a genuine practicing occultist? Or perhaps Setoth just drank a wee bit too much of his absinthe and the entire conversation I just had with him was me listening to a drunken rant? If so, damn Setoth, you are a crazy drunk.
Anyways, what Kal wants to do is go into this Not-Astral Plane place, and wreck Slendy’s shit. Since Kal’s experience with magick is only slightly better than mine (although to be honest, there are probably rocks out there which know more about magick, Crowley, and the occult than I do), Setoth is going to be doing most of the work for this. Apparently Setoth being in Texas and Kal being in Colorado doesn’t matter for this ritual thing Setoth has planned. He said it was because of something about orbits, or maybe it was aeons, or….. ARGH, THIS STUFF MAKES QUANTUM STRING THEORY LOOK SANE.
The part where I come in has thankfully little to do with this abracadabra stuff. While Setoth’s tromping around in the Not-Astral Plane place, his body in boring old regular world is going to be a vegetable. During that time, he’ll be vulnerable. It’s very unlikely that Slendy would just sit back and let Setoth do whatever he pleases, and with Javert in the city, things might get a bit dangerous. Therefore it’s my job to make sure nothing violent happens to Setoth while he’s handling stuff.
I have to say, I’m getting really excited about this. We’ve already picked the locale: a partially finished construction site, five stories tall, with plenty of hazards and dangers which I may use to entertain any guests who show. And I really do hope that we get guests tonight.
Previous/Next
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Analysis
As part of Setoth’s research, he’s asked me to review all the weirdness that’s gone on with us. Because being the only one who actually reads a large amount of other blogs makes me the expert, apparently.
This also means I had to actually read that blog Setoth’s friend has.
Yeah, Setoth has friends apart from me.
I felt so betrayed when I realized it, man. Like my heart had been torn from my body. I think I’m going to need a moment to myself.
….
Okay, all better now.
So I guess let’s get to analyzing these things.
-I was the first of us to encounter Slender Man. Now that I think about, I never really talked much about how I met him. When I first started writing, I was trying to be “Ooh, I’m so dark and mysterious!”, and now, I really don’t’ care much about it anymore. But I suppose I should tell, for the sake of science. Standard delving in too deep, Tulpa based encounter. I’d read several dozen blogs, watched most of the video series, even had an operator symbol sewn into a jacket (I don’t have that jacket anymore; it was thrown out shortly after I first saw Slendy). At first, I thought my visions of Slendy were just a result of an overactive imagination. It soon became apparent that it wasn’t. Fun times soon followed.
-My original roommate, Jason, was the next infected. Not entirely sure why; he’d never heard of Slender Man before. And it wasn’t as though he was someone close to me; we just happened to be roommates. He might just have been caught up as collateral damage.
-Then I tossed Jason to the Slender Man. Setoth, you might want to review that post a few times; while I may not have been at my sanest when I wrote it, it’s the only first hand record of Slender Man killing someone that any of us have. Even if it is an incomplete record. The laughter I heard would later be repeated, which might be something else to look into.
-Went to Austin, where I started to really badly break down. It took around 32 days since Slender Man’s first appearance before I decided to give myself up to him. Most of the psychological degradation came after I killed Jason. The records I have of that time are in very sorry state, and I can barely remember the exact details of what was going on then. Which is a disappointment, as it was the best example of Slender Man screwing with reality we’ve seen so far.
-Then I snapped out of whatever I’d been in (or perhaps just snapped, if you want to look at it from that perspective), started putting the ideology I’d been preaching into practice, and became awesome. Burning down a forest along the way. Setoth: You might want to look into the part of that post when I first went into the forest, before I started running out. Something about that place wasn’t right. I’m pretty familiar with Central Texas countryside, and there’s nothing like that forest anywhere around here. Bit of a shame that it was so dark and foggy, or I could have gone into more detail describing it.
-Returned to my university apartment, and met Javert for the first time. The first proxy I’d encountered. I’m unsure why there was the sudden shift from Slender Man on his own to using proxies; perhaps as a response to my shift in mentality towards him? But that’s assuming he’s responsive to our attitudes….
-Second proxy encounetr. This one wouldn’t die no matter how much harm I inflicted on him. Whatever Slendy did to him, I had to stab him into a bloody pulp and then run over him with my car before he stopped trying to kill me.
-Lots of stuff with me dealing with Javert and his buddies, plus Slendy screwing with my head. Nothing which would be much interest to Setoth’s research. I did meet Porfiry during this time, although I in no way suspected what he would later become.
-Then we finally have these other people showing up. Way up north, long past the borders where civilization ends and the parts of the US which aren’t Texas begin, in the state of Colorado, Kal had been living with his roommate Henry, doing whatever it is normal college students do when they aren’t being stalked. The two were sharing a blog, which they used to complain about insomnia and sickness. At first I thought those were a result of Slender Man, but then came to the conclusion that they were just whiny crybabies. Kal had been working as a student teacher or something for an elementary school. But then, surprises of surprises, one of his students disappeared. GEE I WONDER WHO COULD HAVE DONE THAT.
-Back to people who matter, I had been trapped in my apartment by Javert and his people. My first attempt to escape failed miserably. The second was a glorious success. I encountered another proxy directly under Slendy’s control (compared to the ones working for Javert) during the second attempt, but he died like a regular person, instead of being nigh impossible to kill for good. Still unsure of why there was such a difference. Also interesting to note that by that point, Slender Man was almost exclusively using Javert and his proxies against me. He would intervene, but it was an intervention after I had done something to his proxies, not a direct assault against me. Might want to look more into the reason for the change in behavior.
-In Colorado Land, Kal got to see his very first Slender Man. This is another time I’m not sure why Slender Man chose to stalk someone. From what Setoth has told me about Kal, he had never heard of Slender Man before this. The only connection was through the student who was taken by Slender Man. After reading the blog, Kal seems to have taken on a lot of guilt about the girl. Perhaps his obsession with her disappearance was the reason? Or maybe Slendy just wanted to screw with someone? Not sure if I can tell. Ooh, and during this whole time where Kal’s panicking about being stalked by Slendy, Henry just continues the blog as usual. Talking about a new girlfriend, writing little short stories; when juxtaposed with Kal’s panic, it’s hilarious.
-Back to me, I had made it to Austin. After a few days there, I saw Porfiry again, although by that time he was under Slendy’s total control. Then I had a very….. Fun…. Encounter with Porfiry and Slendy, which left me temporarily crippled. I believe that’s the first time Slender Man has ever physically hit me. It also raises the question of why I didn’t drown while I was unconscious in the river; looking at it realistically, I shouldn’t have been alive long enough for someone to see me drifting and call the paramedics. Actually…. How the hell did they see me? I was wearing black, it was the middle of the night, and there aren’t many lights along Town Lake. Damn. Why didn’t I think of that before…. After I’m done writing this, I might need to swing by Town Lake at night and do some tests to see if it was really possible for someone to see me that night.
-Apparently Kal had been reading up on Slender Man, because he went to Setoth asking about an article on Encyclopedia Slenderia. Setoth responded. In extreme detail. Setoth found this whole “Slenderman” thing amusing enough that he decided to prove it wrong by summoning Slendy through Thelemic rituals. This turned out to be a terrible mistake, and I still make fun of him for it whenever I can find the chance. For once, it’s glaringly obvious why Slender Man decided to stalk this guy: Slendy really, really doesn’t like it when you try to screw around and prove he doesn’t exist by summoning him through magickal rituals. So in case any of you were thinking of doing that, stop and consider how valuable you believe your kidney is.
-After I found Setoth’s blog, we agreed to meet up. The rest (failing to capture Porfiry as a test subject, and all the events of Javert return/Porfiry’s resurrection) has happened recently enough that I’m assuming Setoth won’t need my help looking over. Unless he’s developed short term memory loss. You think you’ve developed short term memory loss, Setoth?
-And for a final note, Kal from Colorado appears to be nearing the breaking point. I’d give him a week, maybe two, left. His roommate Henry remains hilariously unaware of what’s going on, and seems to be assuming that Kal has gone insane or something similar.
Hopefully that should be enough info to give us some direction in analyzing things. I doubt we’ll find any answers, but any kind of pattern, to at least give us an idea for why these things happen like they do (why Slender Man went from stalking to violent against me, why he was aggressively violent towards Setoth from the start, and why Kal’s still stuck at the stalking stage, for example) would be nice.
Previous/Next
This also means I had to actually read that blog Setoth’s friend has.
Yeah, Setoth has friends apart from me.
I felt so betrayed when I realized it, man. Like my heart had been torn from my body. I think I’m going to need a moment to myself.
….
Okay, all better now.
So I guess let’s get to analyzing these things.
-I was the first of us to encounter Slender Man. Now that I think about, I never really talked much about how I met him. When I first started writing, I was trying to be “Ooh, I’m so dark and mysterious!”, and now, I really don’t’ care much about it anymore. But I suppose I should tell, for the sake of science. Standard delving in too deep, Tulpa based encounter. I’d read several dozen blogs, watched most of the video series, even had an operator symbol sewn into a jacket (I don’t have that jacket anymore; it was thrown out shortly after I first saw Slendy). At first, I thought my visions of Slendy were just a result of an overactive imagination. It soon became apparent that it wasn’t. Fun times soon followed.
-My original roommate, Jason, was the next infected. Not entirely sure why; he’d never heard of Slender Man before. And it wasn’t as though he was someone close to me; we just happened to be roommates. He might just have been caught up as collateral damage.
-Then I tossed Jason to the Slender Man. Setoth, you might want to review that post a few times; while I may not have been at my sanest when I wrote it, it’s the only first hand record of Slender Man killing someone that any of us have. Even if it is an incomplete record. The laughter I heard would later be repeated, which might be something else to look into.
-Went to Austin, where I started to really badly break down. It took around 32 days since Slender Man’s first appearance before I decided to give myself up to him. Most of the psychological degradation came after I killed Jason. The records I have of that time are in very sorry state, and I can barely remember the exact details of what was going on then. Which is a disappointment, as it was the best example of Slender Man screwing with reality we’ve seen so far.
-Then I snapped out of whatever I’d been in (or perhaps just snapped, if you want to look at it from that perspective), started putting the ideology I’d been preaching into practice, and became awesome. Burning down a forest along the way. Setoth: You might want to look into the part of that post when I first went into the forest, before I started running out. Something about that place wasn’t right. I’m pretty familiar with Central Texas countryside, and there’s nothing like that forest anywhere around here. Bit of a shame that it was so dark and foggy, or I could have gone into more detail describing it.
-Returned to my university apartment, and met Javert for the first time. The first proxy I’d encountered. I’m unsure why there was the sudden shift from Slender Man on his own to using proxies; perhaps as a response to my shift in mentality towards him? But that’s assuming he’s responsive to our attitudes….
-Second proxy encounetr. This one wouldn’t die no matter how much harm I inflicted on him. Whatever Slendy did to him, I had to stab him into a bloody pulp and then run over him with my car before he stopped trying to kill me.
-Lots of stuff with me dealing with Javert and his buddies, plus Slendy screwing with my head. Nothing which would be much interest to Setoth’s research. I did meet Porfiry during this time, although I in no way suspected what he would later become.
-Then we finally have these other people showing up. Way up north, long past the borders where civilization ends and the parts of the US which aren’t Texas begin, in the state of Colorado, Kal had been living with his roommate Henry, doing whatever it is normal college students do when they aren’t being stalked. The two were sharing a blog, which they used to complain about insomnia and sickness. At first I thought those were a result of Slender Man, but then came to the conclusion that they were just whiny crybabies. Kal had been working as a student teacher or something for an elementary school. But then, surprises of surprises, one of his students disappeared. GEE I WONDER WHO COULD HAVE DONE THAT.
-Back to people who matter, I had been trapped in my apartment by Javert and his people. My first attempt to escape failed miserably. The second was a glorious success. I encountered another proxy directly under Slendy’s control (compared to the ones working for Javert) during the second attempt, but he died like a regular person, instead of being nigh impossible to kill for good. Still unsure of why there was such a difference. Also interesting to note that by that point, Slender Man was almost exclusively using Javert and his proxies against me. He would intervene, but it was an intervention after I had done something to his proxies, not a direct assault against me. Might want to look more into the reason for the change in behavior.
-In Colorado Land, Kal got to see his very first Slender Man. This is another time I’m not sure why Slender Man chose to stalk someone. From what Setoth has told me about Kal, he had never heard of Slender Man before this. The only connection was through the student who was taken by Slender Man. After reading the blog, Kal seems to have taken on a lot of guilt about the girl. Perhaps his obsession with her disappearance was the reason? Or maybe Slendy just wanted to screw with someone? Not sure if I can tell. Ooh, and during this whole time where Kal’s panicking about being stalked by Slendy, Henry just continues the blog as usual. Talking about a new girlfriend, writing little short stories; when juxtaposed with Kal’s panic, it’s hilarious.
-Back to me, I had made it to Austin. After a few days there, I saw Porfiry again, although by that time he was under Slendy’s total control. Then I had a very….. Fun…. Encounter with Porfiry and Slendy, which left me temporarily crippled. I believe that’s the first time Slender Man has ever physically hit me. It also raises the question of why I didn’t drown while I was unconscious in the river; looking at it realistically, I shouldn’t have been alive long enough for someone to see me drifting and call the paramedics. Actually…. How the hell did they see me? I was wearing black, it was the middle of the night, and there aren’t many lights along Town Lake. Damn. Why didn’t I think of that before…. After I’m done writing this, I might need to swing by Town Lake at night and do some tests to see if it was really possible for someone to see me that night.
-Apparently Kal had been reading up on Slender Man, because he went to Setoth asking about an article on Encyclopedia Slenderia. Setoth responded. In extreme detail. Setoth found this whole “Slenderman” thing amusing enough that he decided to prove it wrong by summoning Slendy through Thelemic rituals. This turned out to be a terrible mistake, and I still make fun of him for it whenever I can find the chance. For once, it’s glaringly obvious why Slender Man decided to stalk this guy: Slendy really, really doesn’t like it when you try to screw around and prove he doesn’t exist by summoning him through magickal rituals. So in case any of you were thinking of doing that, stop and consider how valuable you believe your kidney is.
-After I found Setoth’s blog, we agreed to meet up. The rest (failing to capture Porfiry as a test subject, and all the events of Javert return/Porfiry’s resurrection) has happened recently enough that I’m assuming Setoth won’t need my help looking over. Unless he’s developed short term memory loss. You think you’ve developed short term memory loss, Setoth?
-And for a final note, Kal from Colorado appears to be nearing the breaking point. I’d give him a week, maybe two, left. His roommate Henry remains hilariously unaware of what’s going on, and seems to be assuming that Kal has gone insane or something similar.
Hopefully that should be enough info to give us some direction in analyzing things. I doubt we’ll find any answers, but any kind of pattern, to at least give us an idea for why these things happen like they do (why Slender Man went from stalking to violent against me, why he was aggressively violent towards Setoth from the start, and why Kal’s still stuck at the stalking stage, for example) would be nice.
Previous/Next
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Javert's Return
Crazy night. It’d be best if I skipped the introductory small talk and moved straight into content.
Over a week of quiet nights had passed; peaceful, but boring. I was at Setoth’s place, as usual. Around 3 in the morning, I heard musical notes coming from outside. After several seconds of listening, I identified it as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. However, after looking out the windows, I found the area around the apartment lacking in late night musicians. A theory began to grow in my head. I asked Setoth if he could hear the music; after hurling various obscenities at me for waking him up, he confirmed that he couldn’t hear anything.
Once more, the safe course of action (ignoring the mysterious music and staying at home) was the opposite of what I did. Upon grabbing my sword and exiting the building, I could discern the direction from where the song originated. I followed it for some time; no matter how far I walked, the music always seemed to be coming from someplace nearby. After almost a mile wandering the night streets of downtown Austin, I reached the final destination. It was a bar along 6th street, but unlike the others, there were no lights or crowds of drunken students outside. Only darkness and music came from the gray walled structure. Aiming to create for myself a dramatic entrance, I strode to the door and kicked it as hard as I could.
I won’t bore you with the full details of what happened as a consequence, except to say it involve me swearing loudly and clutching my throbbing foot. After that pain died down, I got back up and pulled the door open.
Indoors was fancier than I’d expected. Fine furniture, expensive wines, and a style which called for suits and money filled the place. At the back was a stage, and upon that stage, illuminated by a spotlight, Javert was playing the piano. He was dressed in a black police uniform; rather classy looking. Soon after I entered, the song came to an end, and he looked towards me.
Javert: “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Arkady.” He said. “I had begun to worry that someone else would take my place in pursuing you. You don’t mind if I call you by that name you’ve given yourself online? I believe it to suit you much better than the one you were given at birth.”
I didn’t answer then, instead focusing on my surroundings. Javert still had his gun, and there was no nearby cover which could stop a bullet. And the distance between us was too much for me to rush him.
J: “You’re amazingly quiet.” He continued, grinning that wide grin of his. “The last time we spoke, I had to hit you to make you stop talking.”
Arkady: “I was just surprised to see you, that’s all.” Keep him talking, I thought. You might find an opening. “This city’s out of your jurisdiction, after all.”
J: “I’m not here on police business. You still haven’t been charged with any of the crimes you’ve committed.”
A: “Then what’s with the uniform?” The very fancy uniform. Where’d he get something like that? I don’t remember them being standard issue down at the PD.
J: “It serves as a reminder of my purpose, and a symbol of the justice which I serve.”
A: “Ya know, crazy as it sounds, helping the faceless abomination kill people doesn’t strike me as something which I would call ‘justice’. It just doesn’t seem to fit.”
Prepare for a long winded rant from him now.
J: “Really, now? Is it wrong to call it justice when I pursue someone like you? You call Him a monster and an abomination, but what of yourself?” His voice turned bitter. “You’ve killed four innocent people, one of whom was a fellow officer of mine, assaulted two others, stolen a car and several wallets, and burned down an entire forest, along with several homes bordering it. Homes with people inside. Yet you show no regret for any of your actions; rather, you take pride in them, and publically boast of your exploits. You have no morals or code which you live by. You are the monster in this world. After observing you all this time, the only conclusion I can draw to form any reason behind your actions is that you are trying to outdo the character whose name you took in sheer depravity and evil. All you need to do to match him now is attempted rape and pedophilia; I don’t want to know how you plan to then surpass him.” There was no reason for him to be throwing around accusations of pedophilia around. Sure, I attempted to bribe Cynthia with offers of ice cream over on her blog, but you have to look at it in the context of the thing! “I can scarcely imagine what atrocities you would commit if you had not fixated your attention on Him. Thus far I have only managed to save one person from you; the man you stole your car from. Had I not gotten him to a hospital as soon as I’d found him, the concussion you gave him would have killed him. But it’s impossible for me to rescue all of your victims. I would be saving lives if I were to shoot you right now.”
A: “So why don’t you, hm?”
J: “Because, mad as it may sound, our God is merciful, and he has chosen to put you on the path to redemption.”
A: I paused for several seconds, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry? Redemption?”
J: He smiled, so very smugly. Like I was a dolt asking the teacher a stupid question. “Of course. Did you think the reason you’re still alive is because of your own actions? Don’t be foolish. You said yourself, He can ‘appear behind you, wrap a tentacle around your neck, and pop off your head’ without any warning.” Well, now I know he reads my blog. “The only reason He has not done so is because He chooses not to kill you.”
A: “And? I’d always thought that was because he just liked playing with his food first.”
J: “Don’t be so crude; the reason is much more sophisticated.” So he likes to play with his food in a sophisticated manner? “Forgiving those who seem unforgivable is a tale found repeatedly in the Bible. Think of the city of Nineveh, and how it was saved from destruction when its people chose to repent.” If I remember that story correctly, there was also a guy named Jonah who got pissed off at god when the city was forgiven instead of destroyed. I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS BLOG, JAVERT. MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING ABOUT YOUR CAPACITY FOR FORGIVENESS RIGHT ABOUT NOW?
A: “So what, I’m a city? Why don’t I have aqueducts running all around me?” For a moment I considered throwing something at him, but I had nothing heavy enough to actually hurt him with.
J: “The city is a metaphor.” He seemed very annoyed then. Which shows that my response was a success. “It was given a choice between salvation and destruction. As are all who are judged by God.”
A: I’d been using this time to slowly inch forward. By that point, I had covered a third of the original distance between us. “Look, Javert, you’re a nice guy and all, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep pseudo-religious overtones out of the Lovecraftian horror story I’m going through right now. Everyone knows that the Cthulhu Mythos’s best works were back before Lovecraft’s successors turned it all Judeo-Christian after all.”
J: “If you wish to ignore me, I won’t stop you. Damnation is a choice you make on your own.” Ooh, look at me, I’m Javert, and I’m all high and mighty with my moral superiority.
A: “Yeah, well, excuse me for not making the connection between the supposedly loving, compassionate god you claim to be serving and the thing in the suit which eviscerates children. How the hell is killing people en masse supposed to be merciful?”
J: “Death is only a tragedy from a human perspective, not a divine one.”
A: “The hell are you trying to say with that?”
J: “Did you ever read the Screwtape Letters?” Did he actually think he could outdo me in literary references?
A: “Yeah. Felt the ending was too depressing. I would have been happier if Screwtape's nephwew had broken the man and eaten his soul.”
J: “You have an awful tendency to misinterpret the meaning of books you read.”
A: “Yeah, well, it’s a bad HABIT.” Javert seemed unimpressed by my attempt at referential humor.
J: “The ending of the book is supposed to be a triumph, as the human dies while he is within grace, and thus enters heaven. Compare this to the children you shout about in a doomed attempt to give yourself the moral high ground; He takes them into His kingdom while they are still free of sin.”
A: “What about all those people he’s disemboweled?”
J: “Is it not natural for God to smite those who have fallen too far from grace? The cities of Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed for their wickedness.”
A: “Creating fear and paranoia.”
J: “Fear is a rational response to seeing something so terribly powerful. Think of the angels who appeared to the shepherds; they first had to reassure those humans by telling them not to be afraid.”
A: “Brainwashed proxies.”
J: “Disciples who have given themselves up in the service of Him.”
A: “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you.”
J: “Of course. At the least, it cannot be said that I follow an incomplete theology.”
A: By that point, I was halfway across the room, and considering throwing a chair at him. “I dunno, I think I can see a pretty large hole in it. Mostly in the part where you claim that Yahweh is a friggin’ tall man-tree hybrid thing in a business suit without a face. That just doesn’t seem to say divinity to me.”
J: “He may take any form he wishes. And after seeing everything he has done, how can you deny his omnipotence? He has existed for thousands of years. He knows all that has happened, and all that will happen. Time and space are toys to Him. When faced with such a being, worship is the only correct response.”
A: “Bullshit. The only correct response is to fight against it as hard as you can. Anything less is weakness. If you see something stronger than you, you struggle against that thing, until you surpass them. You keep fighting and struggling until you have reached the top, and seized divinity for yourself. That is the only way a human should live.”
J: “You are a fool. A petulant child rebelling against their father simply out of spite. Your ‘way humans should live’ is a chaotic bloodbath fit only for sociopaths such as yourself.”
A: “And you’re a slave. I’d rather live in my bloodbath than in your peaceful, ordered world, if it meant I could be free.”
J: “Again, you prove that you are a fool. He does not seek slaves. Something as powerful as He has no use for them. What He wants are disciples, people who can be taught. His aim is not to have us toil under him eternally, but for us to be raised to his level, and become one with him once we enter his kingdom.”
A: “Referencing Screwtape again? There are authors outside of Lewis, you know.”
J: “I could say the same to you about Dosteyevksy.”Oh no he did not just say that.
A: Three fourths across the room. There was no way he wasn’t noticing I was getting closer, but he allowed me to do so anyway. “So what’s the reason for all of this? I don’t think you’d draw me all the way out here just to have a little chat. And if this is a trap, it’s an annoyingly extended one.”
J: “It is a trap. But not for you. You aren’t the only one in this city to have drawn His attention.”
A: Then realization hit me. “You wanted to get me away from Setoth.”
J: He nodded. “A more indirect plan than I’d have liked, but it is what we have been compelled to do. Shortly after we began to talk, the one you have chosen to call ‘Porfiry’ began to attack your friend.”
A: “Bullshit. Porfiry’s dead. I saw the fire burn that place down.”
J: “Arkady, have you ever heard of the tale of Lazarus?”
A very long silence descended. I’m a bit ashamed of my reaction here, to be honest, but will write it down for accuracy’s sake….
A: “Fuck. No fucking way. You can’t fucking do that! I killed him! He’s dead! You can’t fucking bring back people I fucking already killed! That’s…. That’s…. You can’t fucking do that! He can’t be alive! That’s not fucking possible!”
J: “Who are you to tell a god what is impossible?” Damn it, he looked so annoyingly triumphant then….
That felt like a good stopping point for the conversation. I pulled out my sword and tried to rush him, hoping that I could cover the distance between us before he pulled his gun out.
He didn’t even try to stop me. Just sat behind that piano, smiling. I was less than a foot away from him, about to swing at his face, when everything around me seemed to blur and twist. For several seconds, colors and shapes whirled around me, making me feel sick. Then, I blacked out.
When I woke up, I was outside Setoth’s apartment.
The front door was open, and no sign of Setoth inside. Still, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to find him; all I would have to do would be to follow the trail of unnaturally thick fog which had settled over downtown. But first I grabbed some rags, a lighter, and a bottle of absinthe. Just in case.
After I ran into the fog, geography got…. Strange. I could barely see a few feet ahead of me, so I tried using whatever landmarks I came across to keep me grounded in my location, but I soon began to realize that the landmarks were out of order. I’d run past something from west Austin, and then a few seconds later pass a feature from east Austin. While running north. I soon gave up trying to keep track of where I was, and just followed the fog.
I was led to a large, stone church. It was a place I’d driven by several times when I was younger; the design is similar to the old Protestant churches in Germany. The lights were on inside, which let me peer through one of the stained glass windows and watch the spectacle. Setoth, Porfiry, and Slendy were there, in the aisle running down the rows of pews. Setoth looked like he was in some kind of trance, his feet slowly moving across the red carpet towards Slender Man’s growing embrace. As for Porfiry…. At least, I think it was Porfiry. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human anymore. His eyes were gone, as though they had been gouged out, and scars covered his face, making it nearly unrecognizable. His arm was twisted gruesomely, and his ribs had been pulled apart, tearing the flesh and revealing the pulsating organs underneath. He looked more like some kind of undead creature than a man given a miraculous second life.
Ignoring the vast amounts of time and money which had likely been put into the creation of such an artistic window, I smashed through it with my sword, and leaped through the hole. As soon as I landed inside the church, I lit the Molotov I’d made out of the absinthe, and threw it at Slender Man. The flames exploded around him; Porfiry screamed and suddenly vanished. Slender Man turned to face me. There was no sign that I’d harmed him at all, but it broke Setoth out of whatever hypnosis stuff he was in, and he stopped walking towards it. Still, with the initial shock he seemed to be going through when he came to, Setoth wasn’t reacting fast enough for my tastes, so I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the door. After the first few steps, he began to run on his own, and we dashed towards our chance at escape.
I looked back once, and when I did, I had the realization that maybe throwing fire at the pyrokinetic creature wasn’t the best plan. The flames were spreading out from him, covering the church. The statues of Jesus and the disciples, the altar, the cross…. Everything was covered in fire. In the very center of it all, Slender Man stood, his tentacles reaching upwards; like a black tree of fire growing from the stone floor.
The two of us made it to the door, and then blacked out. We both woke up several hours later back at Setoth’s apartment. I checked the news about any churches burning down, but came up with nothing.
But I did see a familiar patrol car drive by. It slowed down as it passed, as though to say hello to us, and then drove out of sight.
And here's Setoth's view on these things. Next time, try to avoid getting chased by zombie proxies when I'm not around, Setoth.
Previous/Next
Over a week of quiet nights had passed; peaceful, but boring. I was at Setoth’s place, as usual. Around 3 in the morning, I heard musical notes coming from outside. After several seconds of listening, I identified it as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. However, after looking out the windows, I found the area around the apartment lacking in late night musicians. A theory began to grow in my head. I asked Setoth if he could hear the music; after hurling various obscenities at me for waking him up, he confirmed that he couldn’t hear anything.
Once more, the safe course of action (ignoring the mysterious music and staying at home) was the opposite of what I did. Upon grabbing my sword and exiting the building, I could discern the direction from where the song originated. I followed it for some time; no matter how far I walked, the music always seemed to be coming from someplace nearby. After almost a mile wandering the night streets of downtown Austin, I reached the final destination. It was a bar along 6th street, but unlike the others, there were no lights or crowds of drunken students outside. Only darkness and music came from the gray walled structure. Aiming to create for myself a dramatic entrance, I strode to the door and kicked it as hard as I could.
I won’t bore you with the full details of what happened as a consequence, except to say it involve me swearing loudly and clutching my throbbing foot. After that pain died down, I got back up and pulled the door open.
Indoors was fancier than I’d expected. Fine furniture, expensive wines, and a style which called for suits and money filled the place. At the back was a stage, and upon that stage, illuminated by a spotlight, Javert was playing the piano. He was dressed in a black police uniform; rather classy looking. Soon after I entered, the song came to an end, and he looked towards me.
Javert: “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Arkady.” He said. “I had begun to worry that someone else would take my place in pursuing you. You don’t mind if I call you by that name you’ve given yourself online? I believe it to suit you much better than the one you were given at birth.”
I didn’t answer then, instead focusing on my surroundings. Javert still had his gun, and there was no nearby cover which could stop a bullet. And the distance between us was too much for me to rush him.
J: “You’re amazingly quiet.” He continued, grinning that wide grin of his. “The last time we spoke, I had to hit you to make you stop talking.”
Arkady: “I was just surprised to see you, that’s all.” Keep him talking, I thought. You might find an opening. “This city’s out of your jurisdiction, after all.”
J: “I’m not here on police business. You still haven’t been charged with any of the crimes you’ve committed.”
A: “Then what’s with the uniform?” The very fancy uniform. Where’d he get something like that? I don’t remember them being standard issue down at the PD.
J: “It serves as a reminder of my purpose, and a symbol of the justice which I serve.”
A: “Ya know, crazy as it sounds, helping the faceless abomination kill people doesn’t strike me as something which I would call ‘justice’. It just doesn’t seem to fit.”
Prepare for a long winded rant from him now.
J: “Really, now? Is it wrong to call it justice when I pursue someone like you? You call Him a monster and an abomination, but what of yourself?” His voice turned bitter. “You’ve killed four innocent people, one of whom was a fellow officer of mine, assaulted two others, stolen a car and several wallets, and burned down an entire forest, along with several homes bordering it. Homes with people inside. Yet you show no regret for any of your actions; rather, you take pride in them, and publically boast of your exploits. You have no morals or code which you live by. You are the monster in this world. After observing you all this time, the only conclusion I can draw to form any reason behind your actions is that you are trying to outdo the character whose name you took in sheer depravity and evil. All you need to do to match him now is attempted rape and pedophilia; I don’t want to know how you plan to then surpass him.” There was no reason for him to be throwing around accusations of pedophilia around. Sure, I attempted to bribe Cynthia with offers of ice cream over on her blog, but you have to look at it in the context of the thing! “I can scarcely imagine what atrocities you would commit if you had not fixated your attention on Him. Thus far I have only managed to save one person from you; the man you stole your car from. Had I not gotten him to a hospital as soon as I’d found him, the concussion you gave him would have killed him. But it’s impossible for me to rescue all of your victims. I would be saving lives if I were to shoot you right now.”
A: “So why don’t you, hm?”
J: “Because, mad as it may sound, our God is merciful, and he has chosen to put you on the path to redemption.”
A: I paused for several seconds, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry? Redemption?”
J: He smiled, so very smugly. Like I was a dolt asking the teacher a stupid question. “Of course. Did you think the reason you’re still alive is because of your own actions? Don’t be foolish. You said yourself, He can ‘appear behind you, wrap a tentacle around your neck, and pop off your head’ without any warning.” Well, now I know he reads my blog. “The only reason He has not done so is because He chooses not to kill you.”
A: “And? I’d always thought that was because he just liked playing with his food first.”
J: “Don’t be so crude; the reason is much more sophisticated.” So he likes to play with his food in a sophisticated manner? “Forgiving those who seem unforgivable is a tale found repeatedly in the Bible. Think of the city of Nineveh, and how it was saved from destruction when its people chose to repent.” If I remember that story correctly, there was also a guy named Jonah who got pissed off at god when the city was forgiven instead of destroyed. I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS BLOG, JAVERT. MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING ABOUT YOUR CAPACITY FOR FORGIVENESS RIGHT ABOUT NOW?
A: “So what, I’m a city? Why don’t I have aqueducts running all around me?” For a moment I considered throwing something at him, but I had nothing heavy enough to actually hurt him with.
J: “The city is a metaphor.” He seemed very annoyed then. Which shows that my response was a success. “It was given a choice between salvation and destruction. As are all who are judged by God.”
A: I’d been using this time to slowly inch forward. By that point, I had covered a third of the original distance between us. “Look, Javert, you’re a nice guy and all, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep pseudo-religious overtones out of the Lovecraftian horror story I’m going through right now. Everyone knows that the Cthulhu Mythos’s best works were back before Lovecraft’s successors turned it all Judeo-Christian after all.”
J: “If you wish to ignore me, I won’t stop you. Damnation is a choice you make on your own.” Ooh, look at me, I’m Javert, and I’m all high and mighty with my moral superiority.
A: “Yeah, well, excuse me for not making the connection between the supposedly loving, compassionate god you claim to be serving and the thing in the suit which eviscerates children. How the hell is killing people en masse supposed to be merciful?”
J: “Death is only a tragedy from a human perspective, not a divine one.”
A: “The hell are you trying to say with that?”
J: “Did you ever read the Screwtape Letters?” Did he actually think he could outdo me in literary references?
A: “Yeah. Felt the ending was too depressing. I would have been happier if Screwtape's nephwew had broken the man and eaten his soul.”
J: “You have an awful tendency to misinterpret the meaning of books you read.”
A: “Yeah, well, it’s a bad HABIT.” Javert seemed unimpressed by my attempt at referential humor.
J: “The ending of the book is supposed to be a triumph, as the human dies while he is within grace, and thus enters heaven. Compare this to the children you shout about in a doomed attempt to give yourself the moral high ground; He takes them into His kingdom while they are still free of sin.”
A: “What about all those people he’s disemboweled?”
J: “Is it not natural for God to smite those who have fallen too far from grace? The cities of Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed for their wickedness.”
A: “Creating fear and paranoia.”
J: “Fear is a rational response to seeing something so terribly powerful. Think of the angels who appeared to the shepherds; they first had to reassure those humans by telling them not to be afraid.”
A: “Brainwashed proxies.”
J: “Disciples who have given themselves up in the service of Him.”
A: “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you.”
J: “Of course. At the least, it cannot be said that I follow an incomplete theology.”
A: By that point, I was halfway across the room, and considering throwing a chair at him. “I dunno, I think I can see a pretty large hole in it. Mostly in the part where you claim that Yahweh is a friggin’ tall man-tree hybrid thing in a business suit without a face. That just doesn’t seem to say divinity to me.”
J: “He may take any form he wishes. And after seeing everything he has done, how can you deny his omnipotence? He has existed for thousands of years. He knows all that has happened, and all that will happen. Time and space are toys to Him. When faced with such a being, worship is the only correct response.”
A: “Bullshit. The only correct response is to fight against it as hard as you can. Anything less is weakness. If you see something stronger than you, you struggle against that thing, until you surpass them. You keep fighting and struggling until you have reached the top, and seized divinity for yourself. That is the only way a human should live.”
J: “You are a fool. A petulant child rebelling against their father simply out of spite. Your ‘way humans should live’ is a chaotic bloodbath fit only for sociopaths such as yourself.”
A: “And you’re a slave. I’d rather live in my bloodbath than in your peaceful, ordered world, if it meant I could be free.”
J: “Again, you prove that you are a fool. He does not seek slaves. Something as powerful as He has no use for them. What He wants are disciples, people who can be taught. His aim is not to have us toil under him eternally, but for us to be raised to his level, and become one with him once we enter his kingdom.”
A: “Referencing Screwtape again? There are authors outside of Lewis, you know.”
J: “I could say the same to you about Dosteyevksy.”Oh no he did not just say that.
A: Three fourths across the room. There was no way he wasn’t noticing I was getting closer, but he allowed me to do so anyway. “So what’s the reason for all of this? I don’t think you’d draw me all the way out here just to have a little chat. And if this is a trap, it’s an annoyingly extended one.”
J: “It is a trap. But not for you. You aren’t the only one in this city to have drawn His attention.”
A: Then realization hit me. “You wanted to get me away from Setoth.”
J: He nodded. “A more indirect plan than I’d have liked, but it is what we have been compelled to do. Shortly after we began to talk, the one you have chosen to call ‘Porfiry’ began to attack your friend.”
A: “Bullshit. Porfiry’s dead. I saw the fire burn that place down.”
J: “Arkady, have you ever heard of the tale of Lazarus?”
A very long silence descended. I’m a bit ashamed of my reaction here, to be honest, but will write it down for accuracy’s sake….
A: “Fuck. No fucking way. You can’t fucking do that! I killed him! He’s dead! You can’t fucking bring back people I fucking already killed! That’s…. That’s…. You can’t fucking do that! He can’t be alive! That’s not fucking possible!”
J: “Who are you to tell a god what is impossible?” Damn it, he looked so annoyingly triumphant then….
That felt like a good stopping point for the conversation. I pulled out my sword and tried to rush him, hoping that I could cover the distance between us before he pulled his gun out.
He didn’t even try to stop me. Just sat behind that piano, smiling. I was less than a foot away from him, about to swing at his face, when everything around me seemed to blur and twist. For several seconds, colors and shapes whirled around me, making me feel sick. Then, I blacked out.
When I woke up, I was outside Setoth’s apartment.
The front door was open, and no sign of Setoth inside. Still, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to find him; all I would have to do would be to follow the trail of unnaturally thick fog which had settled over downtown. But first I grabbed some rags, a lighter, and a bottle of absinthe. Just in case.
After I ran into the fog, geography got…. Strange. I could barely see a few feet ahead of me, so I tried using whatever landmarks I came across to keep me grounded in my location, but I soon began to realize that the landmarks were out of order. I’d run past something from west Austin, and then a few seconds later pass a feature from east Austin. While running north. I soon gave up trying to keep track of where I was, and just followed the fog.
I was led to a large, stone church. It was a place I’d driven by several times when I was younger; the design is similar to the old Protestant churches in Germany. The lights were on inside, which let me peer through one of the stained glass windows and watch the spectacle. Setoth, Porfiry, and Slendy were there, in the aisle running down the rows of pews. Setoth looked like he was in some kind of trance, his feet slowly moving across the red carpet towards Slender Man’s growing embrace. As for Porfiry…. At least, I think it was Porfiry. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human anymore. His eyes were gone, as though they had been gouged out, and scars covered his face, making it nearly unrecognizable. His arm was twisted gruesomely, and his ribs had been pulled apart, tearing the flesh and revealing the pulsating organs underneath. He looked more like some kind of undead creature than a man given a miraculous second life.
Ignoring the vast amounts of time and money which had likely been put into the creation of such an artistic window, I smashed through it with my sword, and leaped through the hole. As soon as I landed inside the church, I lit the Molotov I’d made out of the absinthe, and threw it at Slender Man. The flames exploded around him; Porfiry screamed and suddenly vanished. Slender Man turned to face me. There was no sign that I’d harmed him at all, but it broke Setoth out of whatever hypnosis stuff he was in, and he stopped walking towards it. Still, with the initial shock he seemed to be going through when he came to, Setoth wasn’t reacting fast enough for my tastes, so I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the door. After the first few steps, he began to run on his own, and we dashed towards our chance at escape.
I looked back once, and when I did, I had the realization that maybe throwing fire at the pyrokinetic creature wasn’t the best plan. The flames were spreading out from him, covering the church. The statues of Jesus and the disciples, the altar, the cross…. Everything was covered in fire. In the very center of it all, Slender Man stood, his tentacles reaching upwards; like a black tree of fire growing from the stone floor.
The two of us made it to the door, and then blacked out. We both woke up several hours later back at Setoth’s apartment. I checked the news about any churches burning down, but came up with nothing.
But I did see a familiar patrol car drive by. It slowed down as it passed, as though to say hello to us, and then drove out of sight.
And here's Setoth's view on these things. Next time, try to avoid getting chased by zombie proxies when I'm not around, Setoth.
Previous/Next
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Disaster
This is terrible. A tragedy, a complete tragedy. I can barely find the words needed to describe this.
Setoth has no milk in his refrigerator.
How am I supposed to have a complete breakfast without a glass of milk? This goes against everything those commercials taught me a real breakfast should be like when I was a kid! (You know the ones. They would show a glass of milk and orange juice, a muffin, a banana, maybe an egg, and a box of sugar labeled “cereal”).
All we’ve got to drink here is Setoth’s absinthe, and he guards that more carefully than his life. Therefore, on principle, I picked the lock on the cabinet and tried some while he was at class. It tastes terrible; never going to try that again. If he wants the absinthe to himself, he can have it.
Which still leaves me without a breakfast drink. Setoth has made it abundantly clear that he isn’t going to buy me everything I demand, which means acquiring a bottle of milk is a task which I must complete alone. Though this leaves me with the dilemma of how to acquire this bottle: should I simply steal one from a store, or choose the more indirect path and steal the money needed to purchase one?
Also. The tall guy. It’s been relatively quiet on that front. Since Porfiry was caught in the fire, we haven’t seen any proxies, or otherwise suspicious people, following us. As for Slender Man itself, no direct sightings. Sometimes one of us would briefly see a shadow in the distance that might be Slendy. Or it might not. It’s a horribly disappointing situation; can’t Mr. Man see that I want to play with him?
I intend to avoid the mistakes I made in the previous lull, however. I’m staying on guard, and keeping in shape. I won’t be caught surprised by some guy charging at me with a knife. Setoth’s been doing a lot of research and reading, or whatever it is he does. I tend to leave that to him; while I’m all for learning about Slendy, I plan to stay out of the weird occult stuff going on.
All in all, things seem uncharacteristically optimistic here. Which means I should probably be preparing for some major crisis.
Previous/Next
Setoth has no milk in his refrigerator.
How am I supposed to have a complete breakfast without a glass of milk? This goes against everything those commercials taught me a real breakfast should be like when I was a kid! (You know the ones. They would show a glass of milk and orange juice, a muffin, a banana, maybe an egg, and a box of sugar labeled “cereal”).
All we’ve got to drink here is Setoth’s absinthe, and he guards that more carefully than his life. Therefore, on principle, I picked the lock on the cabinet and tried some while he was at class. It tastes terrible; never going to try that again. If he wants the absinthe to himself, he can have it.
Which still leaves me without a breakfast drink. Setoth has made it abundantly clear that he isn’t going to buy me everything I demand, which means acquiring a bottle of milk is a task which I must complete alone. Though this leaves me with the dilemma of how to acquire this bottle: should I simply steal one from a store, or choose the more indirect path and steal the money needed to purchase one?
Also. The tall guy. It’s been relatively quiet on that front. Since Porfiry was caught in the fire, we haven’t seen any proxies, or otherwise suspicious people, following us. As for Slender Man itself, no direct sightings. Sometimes one of us would briefly see a shadow in the distance that might be Slendy. Or it might not. It’s a horribly disappointing situation; can’t Mr. Man see that I want to play with him?
I intend to avoid the mistakes I made in the previous lull, however. I’m staying on guard, and keeping in shape. I won’t be caught surprised by some guy charging at me with a knife. Setoth’s been doing a lot of research and reading, or whatever it is he does. I tend to leave that to him; while I’m all for learning about Slendy, I plan to stay out of the weird occult stuff going on.
All in all, things seem uncharacteristically optimistic here. Which means I should probably be preparing for some major crisis.
Previous/Next
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Proxynapping
On Tuesday, Setoth got his first look at Porfiry. And like a kid a few weeks before Christmas seeing a cool toy in the window, his response was, “I want it.” Setoth got it into his head that he wanted to study a proxy, so of course we had to go and capture Porfiry so we could do that.
Porfiry had been making sporadic appearances outside the apartment since Tuesday. I hadn’t been bothering with him; he never stayed long enough for me to go out there and bash his face in, and honestly, it’s Porfiry. I wasn’t considering him to be much of a threat. But while I wanted to ignore him, Setoth chose to come up with a PLAN.
There are a few places in the city where the homeless population has commandeered material to build small shacks, and Setoth knew the location of one which wasn’t occupied at the moment. It was located on the outskirts, in an old ranch which had been repurposed into a nature preserve. I was to knock Porfiry unconscious with excessive force, then we drag him inside the shack and Setoth would to whatever it was he was planning to do.
Last night, we decided to put the plan into action. We drove to the location around midnight, and parked by the barbed wire fence. I was carrying my replica sword as a weapon, due to the loss of my knives. Setoth said that his magick would protect him, and made brought along dozens of pieces of paper with various weird symbols on them, but that didn’t stop him from also taking the paddle along as a club. Not because he needed it, Setoth insisted. It just might come in handy. In case we found ourselves trapped in a boat floating in a large body of water or something.
After hopping over a rusted and old section of the barbed wire fence, we set off down an old ranch path which led to our destination. At first, I was worried that Porfiry wouldn’t show. The landscape stretched off in every direction without any sign of a follower. Just scattered shrubs, tall grass, and impenetrable walls of cacti. Maybe Porfiry hadn’t noticed that we’d left the apartment, and was still back there, trying to creep us out. Or maybe he realized we were expecting him and was showing uncharacteristic forethought.
But just as I was about to suggest we call it quits, I saw movement in the shadows behind us. Porfiry shaped movement. It had only been a brief glance before I lost sight of him in the darkness, but now I knew he was following us. Time for the fun to start.
I gestured for Setoth to stay where he was while I retrieved the target; no reason for me to have a potential liability around during the fight. Besides, this was Porfiry. Last time I’d faced him, I’d crushed him with just my fists. There was no need for both of us to fight him. With such confidence in mind, I walked into the night after Porfiry. In this open ground, there were few places for him to hide. The best he could have done would have been to crouch behind a bush, and I doubt there are many bushes large enough to hide Porfiry.
Things never work out as easy as that, unfortunately. I went to where I’d seen Porfiry, but found nothing. Not one sign of him. After more and more searching without result, I began to doubt that I’d really seen anything.
The doubt vanished when I heard a scream behind me, back where I’d left Setoth. I quickly ran back, and saw Porfiry on top of Setoth, strangling him with one arm. Setoth was trying to break the grip with one hand, but the other was pressing one of the papers which he’d drawn those symbols on against Porfiry’s face. There was a bright light coming from the paper, illuminating the area, and I could smell the flesh underneath it being burned away.
Okay, Setoth, read this carefully, because this is the only time I’m going to say it.
I’m sorry for any comments I made comparing your stuff to Harry Potter.
Because experience has taught me that drawing stuff on pieces of paper does not naturally give that paper the ability to burn off people’s faces.
It really is a shame that Porfiry just shrugged it off and kept strangling you, because that was damn impressive.
Anyways.
I charged at the two, and tackled Porfiry off of Setoth. In the darkness, it was much harder to get an upper hand on Porfiry than I’d expected. Even with one of his wrists broken, he fought harder this time than before. He attacked wildly, clawing and biting at me. More like trying to wrestle an angry cat than a person. I tried hitting the large burn across his face with the hilt of my sword, but he ignored the pain; instead, he seemed more focused on trying to bite out my neck. I am quite fond of my neck, and as a result, I soon found myself having to fight defensively. And fighting defensively soon turned into me being on the ground, trying to keep his teeth away from my face.
Things were looking bleak for our hero Arkady, when suddenly there was a loud THWACK sound, and Porfiry was knocked aside. And there behind him Setoth stood with the paddle. He’d hit Porfiry in the head hard; not only was poor Porfiry out cold, but the paddle now had a long crack running down it from the impact. I hadn’t thought Setoth had it in him.
We dragged Porfiry’s body the rest of the way to the shack. It was a small thing, made of pieces of wood and corrugated iron sheets. Porfiry was tossed inside, and then Setoth drew a bunch of symbols around the place. He said they would make sure nothing happened to our subject. I wasn’t going to argue; even if I hadn’t seen him do whatever he had done with that piece of paper, I was too tired to. Both of us collapsed on the grass outside the shack for some well needed rest. I cracked a joke about getting some chips, but apparently he hasn’t seen TribeTwelve, so he didn’t get it.
Then the temperature dropped twenty fucking degrees. A cloud covered the moon for a second, and when it had passed, Slender Man was standing in front of the shack. One of the symbols Setoth had drawn was right under its feet; it flashed for a second, and then vanished, as though it had never been drawn.
I looked to Setoth, but his face was a mixture of shock and fear. It was then I remembered that this was his first time he’d directly seen Slender Man. As there wasn’t much I could expect from him, I charged at the thing on my own.
Flames erupted from the ground around Slendy. The inferno towered above us, nearly blinding me with the sudden light. The heat was intense; even standing several feet away, I could still feel it burning my skin. And in the center of it all stood Slender Man, the flames lapping at his legs, but never burning them.
Against such a fire, the shack didn’t stand a chance. In under a minute, the wooden frame had been burnt away, and the iron walls were melting. I attempted another charge, but the heat was too much. Like running into a wall. Except walls don’t usually singe off your hair.
While Setoth’s first reaction to the fire had been to mutter something like, “My sigils…. It’s not possible….” He recovered with admirable speed, and was the first to have the bright idea that hanging around the blazing conflagration was a bad idea. He pulled me away from my attempts to stare down a wall of fire, and the two of us ran for the car.
All of which leaves us without a proxy to study, and conflicting evidence over whether Setoth’s mojo works or not.
On the bright side, Setoth’s tougher than I’d given him credit for, and best of all, Porfiry was in that burning building.
Which just leaves Javert and Slendy on my list of people/things which I have a very strong desire to kill.
I’m coming for you two.
Previous/Next
Porfiry had been making sporadic appearances outside the apartment since Tuesday. I hadn’t been bothering with him; he never stayed long enough for me to go out there and bash his face in, and honestly, it’s Porfiry. I wasn’t considering him to be much of a threat. But while I wanted to ignore him, Setoth chose to come up with a PLAN.
There are a few places in the city where the homeless population has commandeered material to build small shacks, and Setoth knew the location of one which wasn’t occupied at the moment. It was located on the outskirts, in an old ranch which had been repurposed into a nature preserve. I was to knock Porfiry unconscious with excessive force, then we drag him inside the shack and Setoth would to whatever it was he was planning to do.
Last night, we decided to put the plan into action. We drove to the location around midnight, and parked by the barbed wire fence. I was carrying my replica sword as a weapon, due to the loss of my knives. Setoth said that his magick would protect him, and made brought along dozens of pieces of paper with various weird symbols on them, but that didn’t stop him from also taking the paddle along as a club. Not because he needed it, Setoth insisted. It just might come in handy. In case we found ourselves trapped in a boat floating in a large body of water or something.
After hopping over a rusted and old section of the barbed wire fence, we set off down an old ranch path which led to our destination. At first, I was worried that Porfiry wouldn’t show. The landscape stretched off in every direction without any sign of a follower. Just scattered shrubs, tall grass, and impenetrable walls of cacti. Maybe Porfiry hadn’t noticed that we’d left the apartment, and was still back there, trying to creep us out. Or maybe he realized we were expecting him and was showing uncharacteristic forethought.
But just as I was about to suggest we call it quits, I saw movement in the shadows behind us. Porfiry shaped movement. It had only been a brief glance before I lost sight of him in the darkness, but now I knew he was following us. Time for the fun to start.
I gestured for Setoth to stay where he was while I retrieved the target; no reason for me to have a potential liability around during the fight. Besides, this was Porfiry. Last time I’d faced him, I’d crushed him with just my fists. There was no need for both of us to fight him. With such confidence in mind, I walked into the night after Porfiry. In this open ground, there were few places for him to hide. The best he could have done would have been to crouch behind a bush, and I doubt there are many bushes large enough to hide Porfiry.
Things never work out as easy as that, unfortunately. I went to where I’d seen Porfiry, but found nothing. Not one sign of him. After more and more searching without result, I began to doubt that I’d really seen anything.
The doubt vanished when I heard a scream behind me, back where I’d left Setoth. I quickly ran back, and saw Porfiry on top of Setoth, strangling him with one arm. Setoth was trying to break the grip with one hand, but the other was pressing one of the papers which he’d drawn those symbols on against Porfiry’s face. There was a bright light coming from the paper, illuminating the area, and I could smell the flesh underneath it being burned away.
Okay, Setoth, read this carefully, because this is the only time I’m going to say it.
I’m sorry for any comments I made comparing your stuff to Harry Potter.
Because experience has taught me that drawing stuff on pieces of paper does not naturally give that paper the ability to burn off people’s faces.
It really is a shame that Porfiry just shrugged it off and kept strangling you, because that was damn impressive.
Anyways.
I charged at the two, and tackled Porfiry off of Setoth. In the darkness, it was much harder to get an upper hand on Porfiry than I’d expected. Even with one of his wrists broken, he fought harder this time than before. He attacked wildly, clawing and biting at me. More like trying to wrestle an angry cat than a person. I tried hitting the large burn across his face with the hilt of my sword, but he ignored the pain; instead, he seemed more focused on trying to bite out my neck. I am quite fond of my neck, and as a result, I soon found myself having to fight defensively. And fighting defensively soon turned into me being on the ground, trying to keep his teeth away from my face.
Things were looking bleak for our hero Arkady, when suddenly there was a loud THWACK sound, and Porfiry was knocked aside. And there behind him Setoth stood with the paddle. He’d hit Porfiry in the head hard; not only was poor Porfiry out cold, but the paddle now had a long crack running down it from the impact. I hadn’t thought Setoth had it in him.
We dragged Porfiry’s body the rest of the way to the shack. It was a small thing, made of pieces of wood and corrugated iron sheets. Porfiry was tossed inside, and then Setoth drew a bunch of symbols around the place. He said they would make sure nothing happened to our subject. I wasn’t going to argue; even if I hadn’t seen him do whatever he had done with that piece of paper, I was too tired to. Both of us collapsed on the grass outside the shack for some well needed rest. I cracked a joke about getting some chips, but apparently he hasn’t seen TribeTwelve, so he didn’t get it.
Then the temperature dropped twenty fucking degrees. A cloud covered the moon for a second, and when it had passed, Slender Man was standing in front of the shack. One of the symbols Setoth had drawn was right under its feet; it flashed for a second, and then vanished, as though it had never been drawn.
I looked to Setoth, but his face was a mixture of shock and fear. It was then I remembered that this was his first time he’d directly seen Slender Man. As there wasn’t much I could expect from him, I charged at the thing on my own.
Flames erupted from the ground around Slendy. The inferno towered above us, nearly blinding me with the sudden light. The heat was intense; even standing several feet away, I could still feel it burning my skin. And in the center of it all stood Slender Man, the flames lapping at his legs, but never burning them.
Against such a fire, the shack didn’t stand a chance. In under a minute, the wooden frame had been burnt away, and the iron walls were melting. I attempted another charge, but the heat was too much. Like running into a wall. Except walls don’t usually singe off your hair.
While Setoth’s first reaction to the fire had been to mutter something like, “My sigils…. It’s not possible….” He recovered with admirable speed, and was the first to have the bright idea that hanging around the blazing conflagration was a bad idea. He pulled me away from my attempts to stare down a wall of fire, and the two of us ran for the car.
All of which leaves us without a proxy to study, and conflicting evidence over whether Setoth’s mojo works or not.
On the bright side, Setoth’s tougher than I’d given him credit for, and best of all, Porfiry was in that burning building.
Which just leaves Javert and Slendy on my list of people/things which I have a very strong desire to kill.
I’m coming for you two.
Previous/Next
Monday, March 7, 2011
Setoth
Amazing how a situation can turn around.
The rational actions for me to have taken would have been to conserve my laptop’s battery power as much as possible, only going online when absolutely necessary. Instead, I kept surfing the Slenderblogs. Not sure what I was hoping to find; I wasn’t exactly thinking my straightest right after the last encounter.
But luck has been oddly gracious towards me. Through the power of clicking link after link, I’ve found that I am not the only one in the city of Austin who has some connection with our faceless monster. Meet Setoth, another of the dozens of college aged people who are being stalked. His real name is Damien. Yeah, like the guy from Dreams in Darkness. Except without the badass alternate personality.
From what I gathered when I skimmed over his blog, he’s really big into the occult. A lot of stuff to do with Crowley and magick (the extra k is what makes it different than Harry Potter, apparently). He thought he’d be a cool kid and prove that Slender Man doesn’t exist by doing some vague summoning ritual thing to draw Slendy to him. A few days later, he’s being chased through the fog by black tentacles. Smooth move there, mate.
Anyways, while I was reading through his posts, I noticed that he’s a student at St. Edwards University. St. Edwards University happens to be conveniently located in downtown Austin. I got into contact with him, and after some discussion, he’s agreed to give me a place to spend the nights at. We met on Sunday, and for the first time in weeks, I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. It was on an old mattress that was thrown onto the floor, but that’s still infinitely better than heaving to curl up in the back seat of a tiny car. Plus I got my laptop charged up, took a shower, washed my clothes, and had food. Real food. Not stuff I picked up from a convenience store, but a genuine meal.
The plan which we appear to have worked out is for me to stay outside in the city during the day, and only come back to his apartment at night. Works for me, as I’d rather not stay inside some random person’s home all day long.
And I know that gift horses are a thing whose mouth you are not supposed to look into, but I just have to say this…. Setoth is hilarious. Not saying he’s a funny guy. No, it’s his reaction to this mess which I find amusing. The kid’s panicking like crazy. He’s got papers with these crazy symbols drawn on them taped up all over the walls and windows, claiming it will act as protection. And he’s always glancing out the windows. It’s like Jason all over again!
Though I suppose I need to keep this one alive longer than I did with Jason. He is my current source of food, after all. Shame he’ll probably be dead or insane by the end of the month. Unless he uses his MAGICK to hit Slender Man with lightning or something.
Previous/Next
The rational actions for me to have taken would have been to conserve my laptop’s battery power as much as possible, only going online when absolutely necessary. Instead, I kept surfing the Slenderblogs. Not sure what I was hoping to find; I wasn’t exactly thinking my straightest right after the last encounter.
But luck has been oddly gracious towards me. Through the power of clicking link after link, I’ve found that I am not the only one in the city of Austin who has some connection with our faceless monster. Meet Setoth, another of the dozens of college aged people who are being stalked. His real name is Damien. Yeah, like the guy from Dreams in Darkness. Except without the badass alternate personality.
From what I gathered when I skimmed over his blog, he’s really big into the occult. A lot of stuff to do with Crowley and magick (the extra k is what makes it different than Harry Potter, apparently). He thought he’d be a cool kid and prove that Slender Man doesn’t exist by doing some vague summoning ritual thing to draw Slendy to him. A few days later, he’s being chased through the fog by black tentacles. Smooth move there, mate.
Anyways, while I was reading through his posts, I noticed that he’s a student at St. Edwards University. St. Edwards University happens to be conveniently located in downtown Austin. I got into contact with him, and after some discussion, he’s agreed to give me a place to spend the nights at. We met on Sunday, and for the first time in weeks, I’ve gotten a good night’s sleep. It was on an old mattress that was thrown onto the floor, but that’s still infinitely better than heaving to curl up in the back seat of a tiny car. Plus I got my laptop charged up, took a shower, washed my clothes, and had food. Real food. Not stuff I picked up from a convenience store, but a genuine meal.
The plan which we appear to have worked out is for me to stay outside in the city during the day, and only come back to his apartment at night. Works for me, as I’d rather not stay inside some random person’s home all day long.
And I know that gift horses are a thing whose mouth you are not supposed to look into, but I just have to say this…. Setoth is hilarious. Not saying he’s a funny guy. No, it’s his reaction to this mess which I find amusing. The kid’s panicking like crazy. He’s got papers with these crazy symbols drawn on them taped up all over the walls and windows, claiming it will act as protection. And he’s always glancing out the windows. It’s like Jason all over again!
Though I suppose I need to keep this one alive longer than I did with Jason. He is my current source of food, after all. Shame he’ll probably be dead or insane by the end of the month. Unless he uses his MAGICK to hit Slender Man with lightning or something.
Previous/Next
Friday, March 4, 2011
Fuck
I never understand people who carry hope while being pursued by this thing. Fighting it, that I can understand. What better opponent than one who is powerful enough that some consider it to be a god; an opponent who cannot die, who could snuff out your life in an instant? It’s the best fucking thrill in the world; the ants biting the feet of the elephant. Eventually it’s going to stomp on us, but before it can do that I’m going to bite it hard.
But hope? This is a thing that can at any time, even this very moment, while you’re reading this page, appear behind you, wrap a tentacle around your neck, and pop off your head, all before you’ve had time to scream. None of us are getting out of this alive, and it’s foolish to tell yourself lies about that. Just accept that your death is imminent, and allow the freedom that comes with that knowledge raise you up to greater heights than any of the other humans wallowing below you.
This is a morbid mood I’m in right now, isn’t it. It’s to be expected. I did almost die. And to think, my only regret was that I never got a chance to kill Javert….
It happened last night, after I had parked my car by Town Lake (which, for those who are not knowledgeable of Austin, is not a lake, but a river.) It’s a nice place; I enjoyed running along the trails and parks there when I was younger.
It’s also semi-wooded, so in hindsight, what the hell were you thinking, Arkady.
If I had to say what it was that led me to making such a stupid decision, it would be complacency. Ever since coming to Austin, I had not once seen Slender Man. The closest I had come to an encounter was that brief glimpse of Porfiry wandering through the crowd downtown. Apart from a few bad nights and the rare twinges of pain which I still felt, there has been little to remind me of his presence. And like a fool, I began to fall into routine; I let my guard down, and began thinking not of the next glorious battle, but of frivolities such as enjoying the serenity of the river at night.
The river was nice, I’ll admit. I sat on the hood of my car, watching the water flow by. The lights of the city painted the sky behind me, but the trees muffled the noise, creating complete peace. It was a reminder of why I enjoyed nature so much before this all happened.
This moment of calm was ruined when Porfiry came sprinting out from the trees with a knife and tried to tackle me off my car. Let’s just say, that took me a tiny bit by surprise. He was moving in the same way as I had seen before; not running, but being pulled, a puppet dragged along as its strings moved. His eyes were blank discs, showing no life in them, and his attempts to stab me were clumsy and unbalanced. Even so, he was fast, much faster than I’d have expected him to be. Had I not been on top of a car, I’d have suffered some grievous injuries there. Instead I was able to use my superior position to kick him in the face as I tried to reach for me.
I have to say, it feels good to fight against someone who isn’t Javert, and therefore isn’t capable of beating me to death with their bare hands. The last time I had an experience like this was that masked freak who entered my apartment during my breakout, and that was over much too soon to be enjoyable. Maybe it was the police uniform, maybe it was the knowledge that he had worked for Javert, or maybe it was just the memory of that condescending tone Porfiry had used the last time he spoke to me, but I wanted to have some fun with that fight. I could have cut his throat with my knife, bashed his head in with my sword, or…. Paddled him to death….? With the paddle, but I resolved to end it with old fashioned fisticuffs.
Let me tell you this, kids, there are few things more entertaining than someone who knows self defense fighting against someone who doesn’t. Before Porfiry had recovered from my foot to the face, I was already off the car and delivering several more blows to him, all of which he failed to block. I really wasn’t fighting a person, but rather, a doll. A doll which would occasionally try to grab me in a pathetic excuse for a grapple, but a doll nonetheless. He didn’t even react when I broke his wrist, and the knife he had been holding clattered on the ground. Soon, he wasn’t even trying to grab anymore. Poor Porfiry just stood there, being hit over and over.
I can remember the feeling that moment; such a wonderful feeling. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, as I felt his nose cracking, saw blood flying from his mouth. And then, that moment where the light returned to his eyes, where he seemed to finally wake up and realize where he was…. Oh, that was amazing. The man tried begging through swollen lips, air whistling between missing teeth…. I had to laugh harder, laugh at him for thinking that asking me to stop would make me stop.
Then, it did stop, but not by my choice. Familiar pain wracked my body, and I collapsed on the ground as my nerves were set ablaze. Behind us, standing so stilly, was that stupid faceless thing. Porfiry went down on his knees, blubbering something. Whatever fear I had inspired in the man was nothing compared to that which was on his face then; it was complete, animalistic terror, raw fear without any trace of intelligence behind it.
The thing began walking towards us, with its slow, long steps. Again, I could feel some odd sense of communication, an offer, or a promise. So little a price, but so great a reward….
Fighting against the pain, ignoring the feeling that my chest would rip apart every time I took a breath, I stood up to face it. Just remaining upright was an effort of will, but I forced my legs to remain steady. Slender Man paused in its walk towards me, and tilted its head slightly to the side. With great effort, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife.
In my head, I could hear the finale to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture playing. I took one step towards the thing, then another, and then another, gradually picking up speed as adrenaline rushed through me, dimming the agony slightly. Soon, I was running towards it, shouting a wordless cry of euphoria and pain, holding my knife like a sword which would tear through this thing before me. When I was a few paces away from it, I began my swing, bringing the knife down so that it would cut across its face….
A tentacle lashed out, hitting me in the gut. The force of it sent me flying in the air, sending me far enough that I landed in the river. There’s a very prevalent myth that water is a soft landing. Bullshit. Landing in water fucking hurts. Add that on top of everything else, and it’s no surprise that I blacked out as soon as I hit.
Don’t know how long it was before I woke up, but when I did, I was on the shore, with a paramedic about to start performing CPR on me. Threw up a lot of water there. According to the paramedic, someone had seen me floating down the river, and pulled me to shore. How very kind of them. I’ll have to find out who it was, so I can put them on my “People I don’t want to murder” list.
The paramedics wanted me to get in the ambulance and go to the hospital. In fact, they were very insistent about that. It took a lot of convincing to make them leave me alone. For a moment, I thought I might need to resort to force, but they relented. Apparently anyone able to argue as aggressively as I was has to be healthy. After they left, I started walking upstream to get back to my car. I made it about…. ¼ of a mile before collapsing.
For an hour I was lying on the path, soaked, vomiting, and gasping for breath. There’s a long bruise going across my stomach where the tentacle hit me, and it hurts like hell. It took me the rest of the night, plus some of the morning, to limp back to where my car was. Falling down every few hundred meters because my legs would just give out certainly didn’t help my progress at all.
I’m currently sprawled out in my backseat, using the WiFi from the coffee shop I’m parked in front of to post this. Fuck, I can’t keep this up. My laptop’s down to 14% battery power, I smell like the river, I lost my last knife when Slendy bitch slapped me, all the food and drink I had at the start has been used up, I’m going through money faster than I’d like, and now I can barely move without nearly blacking out from the pain. Fuck it all. Especially you, Slendy. Fuck you.
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But hope? This is a thing that can at any time, even this very moment, while you’re reading this page, appear behind you, wrap a tentacle around your neck, and pop off your head, all before you’ve had time to scream. None of us are getting out of this alive, and it’s foolish to tell yourself lies about that. Just accept that your death is imminent, and allow the freedom that comes with that knowledge raise you up to greater heights than any of the other humans wallowing below you.
This is a morbid mood I’m in right now, isn’t it. It’s to be expected. I did almost die. And to think, my only regret was that I never got a chance to kill Javert….
It happened last night, after I had parked my car by Town Lake (which, for those who are not knowledgeable of Austin, is not a lake, but a river.) It’s a nice place; I enjoyed running along the trails and parks there when I was younger.
It’s also semi-wooded, so in hindsight, what the hell were you thinking, Arkady.
If I had to say what it was that led me to making such a stupid decision, it would be complacency. Ever since coming to Austin, I had not once seen Slender Man. The closest I had come to an encounter was that brief glimpse of Porfiry wandering through the crowd downtown. Apart from a few bad nights and the rare twinges of pain which I still felt, there has been little to remind me of his presence. And like a fool, I began to fall into routine; I let my guard down, and began thinking not of the next glorious battle, but of frivolities such as enjoying the serenity of the river at night.
The river was nice, I’ll admit. I sat on the hood of my car, watching the water flow by. The lights of the city painted the sky behind me, but the trees muffled the noise, creating complete peace. It was a reminder of why I enjoyed nature so much before this all happened.
This moment of calm was ruined when Porfiry came sprinting out from the trees with a knife and tried to tackle me off my car. Let’s just say, that took me a tiny bit by surprise. He was moving in the same way as I had seen before; not running, but being pulled, a puppet dragged along as its strings moved. His eyes were blank discs, showing no life in them, and his attempts to stab me were clumsy and unbalanced. Even so, he was fast, much faster than I’d have expected him to be. Had I not been on top of a car, I’d have suffered some grievous injuries there. Instead I was able to use my superior position to kick him in the face as I tried to reach for me.
I have to say, it feels good to fight against someone who isn’t Javert, and therefore isn’t capable of beating me to death with their bare hands. The last time I had an experience like this was that masked freak who entered my apartment during my breakout, and that was over much too soon to be enjoyable. Maybe it was the police uniform, maybe it was the knowledge that he had worked for Javert, or maybe it was just the memory of that condescending tone Porfiry had used the last time he spoke to me, but I wanted to have some fun with that fight. I could have cut his throat with my knife, bashed his head in with my sword, or…. Paddled him to death….? With the paddle, but I resolved to end it with old fashioned fisticuffs.
Let me tell you this, kids, there are few things more entertaining than someone who knows self defense fighting against someone who doesn’t. Before Porfiry had recovered from my foot to the face, I was already off the car and delivering several more blows to him, all of which he failed to block. I really wasn’t fighting a person, but rather, a doll. A doll which would occasionally try to grab me in a pathetic excuse for a grapple, but a doll nonetheless. He didn’t even react when I broke his wrist, and the knife he had been holding clattered on the ground. Soon, he wasn’t even trying to grab anymore. Poor Porfiry just stood there, being hit over and over.
I can remember the feeling that moment; such a wonderful feeling. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, as I felt his nose cracking, saw blood flying from his mouth. And then, that moment where the light returned to his eyes, where he seemed to finally wake up and realize where he was…. Oh, that was amazing. The man tried begging through swollen lips, air whistling between missing teeth…. I had to laugh harder, laugh at him for thinking that asking me to stop would make me stop.
Then, it did stop, but not by my choice. Familiar pain wracked my body, and I collapsed on the ground as my nerves were set ablaze. Behind us, standing so stilly, was that stupid faceless thing. Porfiry went down on his knees, blubbering something. Whatever fear I had inspired in the man was nothing compared to that which was on his face then; it was complete, animalistic terror, raw fear without any trace of intelligence behind it.
The thing began walking towards us, with its slow, long steps. Again, I could feel some odd sense of communication, an offer, or a promise. So little a price, but so great a reward….
Fighting against the pain, ignoring the feeling that my chest would rip apart every time I took a breath, I stood up to face it. Just remaining upright was an effort of will, but I forced my legs to remain steady. Slender Man paused in its walk towards me, and tilted its head slightly to the side. With great effort, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife.
In my head, I could hear the finale to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture playing. I took one step towards the thing, then another, and then another, gradually picking up speed as adrenaline rushed through me, dimming the agony slightly. Soon, I was running towards it, shouting a wordless cry of euphoria and pain, holding my knife like a sword which would tear through this thing before me. When I was a few paces away from it, I began my swing, bringing the knife down so that it would cut across its face….
A tentacle lashed out, hitting me in the gut. The force of it sent me flying in the air, sending me far enough that I landed in the river. There’s a very prevalent myth that water is a soft landing. Bullshit. Landing in water fucking hurts. Add that on top of everything else, and it’s no surprise that I blacked out as soon as I hit.
Don’t know how long it was before I woke up, but when I did, I was on the shore, with a paramedic about to start performing CPR on me. Threw up a lot of water there. According to the paramedic, someone had seen me floating down the river, and pulled me to shore. How very kind of them. I’ll have to find out who it was, so I can put them on my “People I don’t want to murder” list.
The paramedics wanted me to get in the ambulance and go to the hospital. In fact, they were very insistent about that. It took a lot of convincing to make them leave me alone. For a moment, I thought I might need to resort to force, but they relented. Apparently anyone able to argue as aggressively as I was has to be healthy. After they left, I started walking upstream to get back to my car. I made it about…. ¼ of a mile before collapsing.
For an hour I was lying on the path, soaked, vomiting, and gasping for breath. There’s a long bruise going across my stomach where the tentacle hit me, and it hurts like hell. It took me the rest of the night, plus some of the morning, to limp back to where my car was. Falling down every few hundred meters because my legs would just give out certainly didn’t help my progress at all.
I’m currently sprawled out in my backseat, using the WiFi from the coffee shop I’m parked in front of to post this. Fuck, I can’t keep this up. My laptop’s down to 14% battery power, I smell like the river, I lost my last knife when Slendy bitch slapped me, all the food and drink I had at the start has been used up, I’m going through money faster than I’d like, and now I can barely move without nearly blacking out from the pain. Fuck it all. Especially you, Slendy. Fuck you.
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Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Existentialist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVadl4ocX0M
”Svidrigailov lives the life implied by Raskolnikov’s most fundamental theory. He oversteps, innovates, moves in any direction. His life is the endless utterance of a new language. One is tempted to say he is the better existentialist of the two but the word “existentialist” implies the intellectual acceptance of a theory, and Svidrigailov derives much of his power from the fact that he is unfettered by theory. We have already seen in the Underground Man how this particular sort of existentialism is essentially self-destructive. The theory proposes a pure spontaneity, but no one can be purely spontaneous who acts to demonstrate a theory. Raskolnikov in soliloquy desperately acknowledges that he cannot attain transcendent freedom, that he is, after all, no better than a louse: ‘… what shows that I am utterly a louse is that… I felt beforehand that I should tell myself so after killing her… The vulgarity! The abjectness!’ Raskolnikov is trapped in his own endless rationalizing consciousness. All the time, both in prospect and retrospect, he is constructing his own life as a story, and the whole point about the freedom he desires is that it must not be constructed in this way. Svidrigailov is free from this itch. He is not constantly saying to himself and to others, ‘Look how unpredictable I am.’ He lives without casuistry. (…)
But if Svidrigailov is as we have described him, what has happened to our picture of Crime and Punishment as showing the essential servitude of existential freedom? If we had only Raskolnikov to deal with, that position would be secure. But with the smiling figure of Svidrigailov watching us from the shadows as he watched Raskolnikov in the novel, a different hypothesis presents itself. Raskolnikov reverted to Christian values, not because the other path is intrinsically impassable, but simply because he, personally, lacked the strength to follow it. Doubtless his final submission shows more virtue, more goodness than his rebellion, but then virtue of that kind was never required of the existential hero. The implication is clear: Raskolnikov is an existential failure, and we know this because, stalking behind him through the novel is the living embodiment of existential success. (…)
If the lesson of the Raskolnikov spatial imagery is that his crime was the quintessence of un-freedom, what by parity of reasoning are we to make of the suicide of Svidrigailov? The Christian interpretation of Crime and Punishment, as we have seen, really needs here a similar bias in the narrative technique. But instead we are given water, space and air. (…)
(…) Heat, confinement and suffocation are one thing; wind, rain, and morning mist are another. If the former mean the denial of freedom, the latter must, by the language of the images we have learned, mean freedom; freedom with all its horror, but the real thing. We may say of Svidrigailov what was once said of another inhabitant of Hell:
…E parve di costoro
Quegli che vince e non colui che perde.”
-A.D. Nuttall
It’s strange; the face I see in my nightmares isn’t the blank orb of Slender Man. It’s the piercing blue eyes of Javert.
Logically, it makes no sense. The ancient creature of death vs. his human servant. One is obviously more frightening than the other. And yet…. Slender Man no longer frightens me. What can he do to me? Kill me, or destroy my mind. He can’t destroy my mind unless I give in to fear. And I can’t give into fear unless I become afraid of him killing me. Once one stops caring about their life, it becomes an easy cycle to break.
Javert, though. He can do more than kill me, or drive me insane. He can make me lose. With Slender Man, it isn’t a question of winning or losing. There’s no competition; it’s like challenging a hurricane. He’s a force, not an opponent. But Javert, Javert is a human. And a human is something you can challenge. A human is something you should be able to defeat. Yet for all our encounters, not once have I gotten a victory over the man. Even the moments where I think I have won for sure, he steals a psychological victory from me at the last moment.
It doesn’t make sense. How can he keep beating me? He’s a slave to that thing; I’m a free man. He’s held back by his desire to protect his family and those close to him; I have no one I need to protect. He is chained by a sense of justice, admittedly a sense skewed by his master; I have no such beliefs preventing me from achieving my goals. I should be able to crush him like all the other pathetic humans I have encountered. Why does he keep winning?
Previous/Next
”Svidrigailov lives the life implied by Raskolnikov’s most fundamental theory. He oversteps, innovates, moves in any direction. His life is the endless utterance of a new language. One is tempted to say he is the better existentialist of the two but the word “existentialist” implies the intellectual acceptance of a theory, and Svidrigailov derives much of his power from the fact that he is unfettered by theory. We have already seen in the Underground Man how this particular sort of existentialism is essentially self-destructive. The theory proposes a pure spontaneity, but no one can be purely spontaneous who acts to demonstrate a theory. Raskolnikov in soliloquy desperately acknowledges that he cannot attain transcendent freedom, that he is, after all, no better than a louse: ‘… what shows that I am utterly a louse is that… I felt beforehand that I should tell myself so after killing her… The vulgarity! The abjectness!’ Raskolnikov is trapped in his own endless rationalizing consciousness. All the time, both in prospect and retrospect, he is constructing his own life as a story, and the whole point about the freedom he desires is that it must not be constructed in this way. Svidrigailov is free from this itch. He is not constantly saying to himself and to others, ‘Look how unpredictable I am.’ He lives without casuistry. (…)
But if Svidrigailov is as we have described him, what has happened to our picture of Crime and Punishment as showing the essential servitude of existential freedom? If we had only Raskolnikov to deal with, that position would be secure. But with the smiling figure of Svidrigailov watching us from the shadows as he watched Raskolnikov in the novel, a different hypothesis presents itself. Raskolnikov reverted to Christian values, not because the other path is intrinsically impassable, but simply because he, personally, lacked the strength to follow it. Doubtless his final submission shows more virtue, more goodness than his rebellion, but then virtue of that kind was never required of the existential hero. The implication is clear: Raskolnikov is an existential failure, and we know this because, stalking behind him through the novel is the living embodiment of existential success. (…)
If the lesson of the Raskolnikov spatial imagery is that his crime was the quintessence of un-freedom, what by parity of reasoning are we to make of the suicide of Svidrigailov? The Christian interpretation of Crime and Punishment, as we have seen, really needs here a similar bias in the narrative technique. But instead we are given water, space and air. (…)
(…) Heat, confinement and suffocation are one thing; wind, rain, and morning mist are another. If the former mean the denial of freedom, the latter must, by the language of the images we have learned, mean freedom; freedom with all its horror, but the real thing. We may say of Svidrigailov what was once said of another inhabitant of Hell:
…E parve di costoro
Quegli che vince e non colui che perde.”
-A.D. Nuttall
It’s strange; the face I see in my nightmares isn’t the blank orb of Slender Man. It’s the piercing blue eyes of Javert.
Logically, it makes no sense. The ancient creature of death vs. his human servant. One is obviously more frightening than the other. And yet…. Slender Man no longer frightens me. What can he do to me? Kill me, or destroy my mind. He can’t destroy my mind unless I give in to fear. And I can’t give into fear unless I become afraid of him killing me. Once one stops caring about their life, it becomes an easy cycle to break.
Javert, though. He can do more than kill me, or drive me insane. He can make me lose. With Slender Man, it isn’t a question of winning or losing. There’s no competition; it’s like challenging a hurricane. He’s a force, not an opponent. But Javert, Javert is a human. And a human is something you can challenge. A human is something you should be able to defeat. Yet for all our encounters, not once have I gotten a victory over the man. Even the moments where I think I have won for sure, he steals a psychological victory from me at the last moment.
It doesn’t make sense. How can he keep beating me? He’s a slave to that thing; I’m a free man. He’s held back by his desire to protect his family and those close to him; I have no one I need to protect. He is chained by a sense of justice, admittedly a sense skewed by his master; I have no such beliefs preventing me from achieving my goals. I should be able to crush him like all the other pathetic humans I have encountered. Why does he keep winning?
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