Life

So much to say. Always so much for me to tell. Those of you who hate long posts, and I know there are some of you out there, won’t be happy with this. Though any of those people who are still here must be commended for their courage and endurance

Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m still alive. And capable of typing out fully coherent sentences without random binary, or that italics thing I had going on for one post. Ain’t that just swell; I personally find both of those things much more preferable than their alternatives.

My last post does speak truth; I went back into my woods, this time at night. Because everyone knows that the best thing to do when hunted by something eldritch is to listen to the advice of terrifying hallucinations which afflict you as a result of said eldritch thing.

My memories of what exactly happened are fuzzy; I wasn’t exactly in peak mental condition at the time, and most of what I do remember is just a dark blur. It began like the visions I had experienced of the forest. Only the moon lighting the tangled darkness, illuminating the path into the woods. Following whatever compulsion was pulling me, I walked down that path.

I got lost in minutes. Ridiculous how that happened; I should have the place memorized. But soon I was walking amongst trees which I had no familiarity with, hounded by fog all around me. I don’t remember most of the visions I had while there, but from what I do recall, they were uniformly unpleasant. Lots of disembodied eyes, moving shadows, the works. The childish laughter which I had heard during Jason’s death was also there, and stupidly, I followed it. The sound led me to a clearing (I’ve gone back and tried to use a map to retrace the route I think I took, and found that, you guessed it, there should be no clearing in that area), covered in black grass. The fog descended on me, covering me completely. Within the shroud, all sound but the laughter was smothered. It was so close, as though I could just reach out and grab whatever was making the noise. Soon, I could: shadows appeared around me, small and childlike. They danced around me in the fog, laughing as they did. The sound was like claws running across my mind, every little giggle ripping through me with incomparable agony. The pain made me fall to my hands and knees, and throw up on the grass. My mind was being pressed down on, forced into blackness. I realized that, beyond any shred of doubt, I was going to die.

The complete inevitability of that fact woke up something inside me, giving volume to a voice which had been shouting at me from within for a long time. The idea coated itself in the pain, riding along with its screams, until it struck my thoughts with a yell that silenced all else.

Of course I was going to die. That had been true since the moment I had seen our finely dressed faceless man watching me. I had joked about how no one who was hunted by him seemed to survive, but I had never seriously accepted that for myself. I was different than all those before me; I would be the one to succeed where all others had failed, the one to live a long and fulfilling life after all this was over. No matter how many times I talked about my death, or encountered my future killer, the realization that I was a dead man never sunk in. But here, in the forest surrounded by shadows, it dawned on me that I had already died, over a month ago.

Cue the music.

I started laughing there. Not a childish giggle like the shadows, but a deep, full throated laugh, louder and freer than any I had allowed myself before. The sound was wild, but not desperate; it was the laughter of a man who had broken out of a cage and discovered the wonders of freedom beyond it.

Too long had I been acting like a living man, not the dead man who I am now. I clenched my right hand into a fist, feeling the muscles tighten and my nails dig into my palms. Fear is something for those that are alive; the dead need not have any fear, for they have already lost everything.
Slowly, I raised myself back up, until I was standing straight again. Pain is a sensation for the living; for a man already dead, every second of pain is a joyous relief, a reminder that oblivion has not yet taken them.
With my laughter filling the night, I punched at one of the dancing shadows. Caution is a burden the living carry; why should a dead man worry about the consequences of his actions?
The shadow disappeared as my fist moved through it, vanishing into the fog. I began striking at the other shadows, no longer caring what would happen to me, just finding any way I could to strike back at them. Of course you can’t win in a fight against shadows, but I tried, oh how I tried, swinging at them again and again, until they finally stopped their damned dance.

I loved that fight, loved the feeling of my blood boiling. It was a shame when it ended. The shadows all vanished, though their laughter remained. Before me, the fog parted, showing another path. I feel my response to this was appropriate; I raised a single finger up, and then ran in the opposite direction.

The fog blinded my path, but I pressed onwards. The claws of tree branches grabbed at me as I ran through. That isn’t a metaphor. Limbs and branches reached for me, slashing at my skin or grabbing at my legs. Dozens of cuts crossed my body; most scratches, but several deep wounds. A few times a root moved to trip me, but I always scrambled back to my feet and resumed my mad dash. The searing pain I was feeling didn’t discourage me; I embraced it, laughing with every twinge of my nerves, using it as fuel to drive me faster. I refused to stop for anything, pressing on through the obstacles which tried to block me.

At the end of the forest, the fog stopped, as though blocked by a wall. When I took those last few steps out of it, back into the clear air, a wave of nausea struck me, forcing me to regurgitate whatever contents of my stomach hadn’t already been thrown up. I looked like I was in horrible shape: my entire body was covered in blood, and I was starting to feel woozy as a result. My left shoe had been lost somewhere in the forest, and my shirt had been torn into so many pieces that it really could no longer be considered an article of clothing. More like a handful of rags which were draped over my shoulders. I unsteadily limped back to my car, and drove home. I used up the entirety of our first aid kit there (I must look like a mummy, with the amount of gauze and bandages all over my body), and prepared the supplies needed for a fantastic party. One empty bottle + gasoline + motor oil + one rag + one lighter = a helluva good time.

With my Molotov cocktail prepared, I drove back to the edge of my forest. It was still clouded in fog, but that wasn’t a problem for me.
Want to know a fun fact about Texas? It can get really dry here. In the past few months, we’ve only had a single day of rain. Since our forests aren’t as big as some other states, we don’t get massive wildfires during the dry times, but that doesn’t change the fact that a small, local forest can be completely destroyed by a single man with enough flammable substances.

When I threw the Molotov into the trees, for a moment it looked like it had been consumed by the fog. Then, there was a flash of light, and soon after, flames roared out, burning away the mist. It was a magical sight, and I couldn’t help but stand transfixed at the rising flames.

Amidst those flames, Slender Man appeared, standing just at the edge of the tree line. He was just watching me, as he so loves to do, completely unaffected by the fire. Much as I would have loved to stay and chat, my work there was finished, and it likely wouldn’t have been long before the authorities arrived to question why some trees had spontaneously combusted, so I gave a bow and left.

At this moment, I’m packing up to leave Austin. I’m guessing staying here won’t be the smartest of ideas, since unless the fire department can move quickly, that fire I started is going to be spreading to the houses nearby pretty soon, and the police tend not to act friendly towards someone who lights sleeping homes on fire. I’ll be driving back to my apartment tonight; hopefully blood loss won’t cause me to lose consciousness and crash into any businessmen who may happen to be wandering across the interstate in the middle of the night. Once I get there…. Who knows? But it’s time to end this foolishness I’ve had for so long. No more of this snobbish, “Ooh, lookit me, I can talk real big about fighting the Slender Man!” No, enough pretending I’m some grand conqueror who will kill the monster, while in reality I hide behind feeble excuses such as “wanting to see my roommate suffer”, or “I’m too scared of the faceless man to do anything about it!” Now we’re making this simple. I will fight him. I will do anything I can to fight against him. And I will probably die. I’m a little mouse, caught by a cat that is now playing with its food before it delivers the final blow. But maybe I can get a good bite on its paws before it decides to finish me off.

This is going to be the best party I’ve ever had, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.

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Can't take this anymore. Going into the woods. Tonight.

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He’s still here why is He still here days and days of Him being here, why can’t He just leave me alone, I can’t stand this anymore then I should stop sitting here and go and sock him in the face, the bastard! Typing isn’t going to get anything done, I should be fighting him! But no, that’s suicide, I would be killed at least I would be doing something instead of sobbing like a pitiful child how am I supposed to fight Him, it’s impossible. Holly was right, I don’t have a plan for this, I’m just running around talking big and pretending I can handle this I can handle this! I will crush that monster’s neck beneath my foot! He wants to kill me? ME? I will show him just who the hell he’s dealing with!

Fighting Him is futile, there’s no way to win…. I’ll find a way to win! I will not give up my life so easily, like all the other weak people he has hunted before! I will fight him with every inch of myself! How can I hope to accomplish that, I can barely even sleep at night now, I’m scared to even get out of my room fear is nothing! Just another obstacle in my path to conquest, which I will tear down! No, not possible, I can’t fight against fear itself like hell I can’t!

Maybe this is punishment for what I’ve done, punishment for all my sins…. I’m sorry Jason, stop shouting at me, please stop shouting at me Jason…. Punishment? Why would I be punished? Punished for being strong? Guilt is a chain which holds people back; I have no need of such chains. No need for me to feel shame about it! I KILLED JASON! ON THE BALCONY! WITH THE SLENDER MAN! And I’ll kill anyone else I have to for this fight! No, that’s insane, I was wrong to kill him, I shouldn’t be doing this…. Of course I should! This is no moral tale where goodness and love will triumph! There is no Sonya to redeem me at the end! Any measures which need be taken shall be taken!

All I want is to go back to normal, it’s Christmas Eve, why can’t I just celebrate Christmas Eve like I used to, why do I have to spend it crawling through darkness and fog everywhere it’s filled the house filled my mind, I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die

Maybe I should just give up now Never! I should never give up! I will never give up! Just get this ordeal over with, go back into the forest and let Him take me, let this torture finally end go back into the forest and fight him! Go back into the forest and stab the fucker in the face nine times with a rusty knife! But I don’t have a rusty knife…. Then I’ll go and fucking find a rusty knife so I have something to stab him with!

It’s so cold here now.
Why can’t He leave me along I’m going to kill that faceless son of a bitch.

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I’m not going to say that I don’t remember making the last post. Or maybe I should, just to see your reactions. Something like, “OMG guyz, i dont remeber writing that some1 must have haxxored my blog!!!1”
Do you think that would go over well with the audience?

It’s not that I don’t remember writing that post; I certainly do. Only I was under the impression that writing it had been part of a dream, not an actual act that took place in the real world. Telling the difference between those two is becoming increasingly difficult. I’m living through a constant stream of disconnected images, shifting from one to another without pause or warning. Did I really watch him dismember my family in their rooms? But I saw them the next day, alive. Which was real? Am I just hallucinating them walking around the house, going about their day, or was their death the reality? Both seemed real, as real as the feeling of me typing on this computer does now.

I’m fairly certain that seeing him walking around my house, like some kind of prison guard on patrol, was real. I’m equally certain that the time where I looked into a mirror, and slowly started to peel my face off, was a dream. But so much lies in confusion…. I remember waking up, and finding myself lying in the branches of a massive tree, one so large that from my location, neither top nor bottom could be seen. I must have spent hours there, before waking up again at home. It was something impossible, but it felt realer than most else I have experienced. Like the forest…. I keep seeing it, over and over. Always at night. The moon hangs low above it, lighting a path for me. The path is all that is lit; everything else around me is dark. Sometimes I walk towards it, following the cheerful whispers which come from inside, but the scene always ends before I go inside. I haven’t tried going into those woods in reality; even in this tired and confused state, I’m not stupid enough to do something to incredibly suicidal.

Then there was another of the waking dreams…. I was on the front porch, having a stare down with Slendy. I don’t know how I ended up in that situation; most of my days pass by unremembered, only a few highlights remaining with me. Given Slender Man’s lack of eyelids (or eyes at all), my contest was doomed to failure, but dammit I was going to give it a shot. After a while, the landscape around me grew blurry, less detailed. Even Slender Man became indistinct then; just a black and white blur. Then I heard a voice, shouting from inside my head, “Come on, Raskolnikov, man up for once!”
It felt like I was physically pushed forward, towards Slender Man. He looked confused at my sudden audacity, what probably looked like me charging forward at him. The two of us shared an awkward moment, before I blacked out again. Looking back, that would have been the perfect opportunity to try something on him…. Why do I keep letting these slip by me….

And the date. My computer tells me that it is the 23rd of December. That can’t be possible. It can’t have only been three days since I went into the countryside. I have seen the sun rise and fall far more than three times. But every morning, I look at the calendar, and it hasn’t advanced beyond the 23rd….

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Dreamers

”The ragamuffin, who had returned with the tea and veal, could not resist asking once more whether he ‘wanted anything else,’ and on again receiving a negative reply, beat a definitive retreat. Svidrigailov fell upon the tea in eagerness, anxious to warm himself, and drank a glass of it, but was unable to eat a single morsel, as he had completely lost his appetite. He was showing clear signs of incipient feverishness. He took off his overcoat and jacket, wrapped himself up in a blanket and lay down on the bed. He was annoyed: ‘It would have been better not to be ill on this occasion at least,’ he thought, and smiled a sardonic smile. The room was airless, the candle was burning dimly, the wind roared outside, somewhere in the corner a mouse was scrabbling, and the whole place seemed to reek of mice and of something leathery. He lay and seemed to lose himself in reverie: thought followed thought. It seemed to him that he would very much like to have been able to fix his imaginings on some one thing in particular. ‘There must be some sort of garden under the window,’ he thought. ‘It’s the trees that are making that roaring noise; how I detest the roaring of trees at night, in darkness and storm – a horrible sound!’ And he remembered how, as he had made his way earlier past Petrovsky Park he had thought about it with positive loathing that reminded him of –kov Bridge and Little Neva, and again he found himself feeling cold, as he had done earlier, standing above the water. ‘I’ve never ever cared for water, not even in landscapes….”

“For some reason, he suddenly recalled how earlier that day, an hour before carrying out his plan concerning Dunya, he had told Raskolnikov he thought it would be a good thing if he were to entrust her to the care of Razumikhin. ‘I probably said that just to give myself a cheap thrill, as Raskolnikov guessed. But that Raskolnikov’s a scoundrel. He’s got a lot on his conscience. He may eventually become a proper scoundrel, when he’s put all the nonsense behind him, but for the present he’s far too fond of life! As far as that point’s concerned that crowd are bastards. Well, let the devil do with them as he pleases, it’s no business of mine….”

“He got up and sat himself on the edge of the bed with his back to the window. ‘It’s better if I don’t try to sleep at all,’ he decided. A cold damp stream of air was coming from the window, however; without raising himself from the spot, he drew the blanket over him and swathed himself in it. As for the candle, he did not light it. He was not thinking about anything, nor did he want to think; but waking dreams rose up one after the other, fragments of thought went flickering past, without beginning, end, or anything to connect them. He seemed to fall into a semi-slumber. It might have been the cold, the gloom, the dampness, the wind that was howling outside the window and making the trees sway, all of them combined, evoking in him and intense predisposition towards the fantastic, and a desire for it – but whatever the reason was, he kept seeing flowers….. He felt positively reluctant to leave them, but he climbed the staircase and entered a large, high-ceiling reception room, and here again everywhere – by the windows, near the doors that were opened on the terrace, on the terrace itself – everywhere there were flowers. The floors had been strewn with freshly scythed fragrant grasses, the windows were open, fresh, cool, light air filtered into the room, birds chirruped outside the windows, and in the middle of the room, on some tables covered with white satin shrouds, stood a coffin. The coffin was wrapped in white gros-de-Naples and trimmed with a thick white ruche. Garlands of flowers entwined it from every side. Covered in flowers, a young girl lay in it, dressed in a white tulle dress, her arms folded together and pressed to her bosom, as though they had been sculpted from marble. But her unbanded hair, the hair of a light blonde, was wet; a wreath of roses entwined her head. The unyielding and already stiffened profile of her face seemed sculpted from marble, but the smile on her pallid lips was full of unchildlike and limitless sorrow and a great, complaining lament. Svidrigailov knew what this girl was: there were no icons or lighted candles beside this coffin. This girl was a suicide [VICTIM] - she had drowned herself. She was only fourteen years old, but this was a heart already broken, and it had destroyed itself, insulted by a humiliation that had terrified and astonished this young child’s consciousness and had flooded her angelically pure soul with shame, tearing from her a last, final shriek of despair that was not heeded but brazenly cursed on a dark night, in the murk, in the cold, in the damp thaw weather, when wind was howling…”

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The Countryside

Oh god…. I just looked back at my last post. That just looks terrible. I feel ashamed that I wrote something like that. It’s like something written by a grade schooler. An imbecilic grade schooler. I would make an excuse about not being able to focus because of the odd dreams (Yes. Weird dreams. I am drowning in clichés here.) I have been experiencing, but nothing can excuse this atrocity. It would have been better for me to just ignore that coyote corpse, and gone through the weekend as though nothing of note (beyond being stalked by a humanoid abomination) had happened.

As a way of making up for forcing you to experience such a terrible travesty, here are several photographs of another forest which I went exploring through recently.

These aren’t from the forest of my home. Yesterday, I drove out into the countryside (something which Texas has in vast quantities), miles away from any large city. This distance between Slendy and I had been making me feel horribly depressed. Was it something I said? Come on, Slendy, don’t leave me alone like this! I promise I’ll change, baby!
I’ve already repeated my dislike of this more subtle attitude he’s shown towards me far more times than necessary, so I will just skip to how I chose to respond to it. Boldly striding into my home forests elicited not one reaction from my foe. So I created a new plan: I would venture into uncharted waters, journey into a stretch of woods where I did not have the protective feelings of nostalgia and familiarity around me.

For over an hour and a half, I drove southwest, until I was surrounded by ranchland. Here was the wide open wilderness; huge ranches which stretch for hundreds of acres. The property is always protected by fences of barbed wire, but I have some experience with getting through such obstacles unharmed (remember kids, trespassing is fun and cool!) I selected the ranch which I would steal away inside based on whichever appeared to have the most trees; the better to draw Slender Man out. I cut through the fence at an isolated point, and established a small camp in a hidden corner of the ranch. So long as I kept away from the main trails and the herds of livestock, the land was large enough that the chances of the owners finding me were small.

For several hours I wandered through the trees, though I kept close to my camp. Nothing happened occurred during those hours, another disappointment for me. When the sun dropped below the horizon, I returned to my camp, so I could wait out the night.

As any other person would in this situation, I made a campfire (carefully located so that it would be hard for any wandering ranch hand to see it from a distance and discover my entry), and began roasting marshmallows. Yeah, you wanna scare me with your oogie-boogie-ness, eh Slendy, but lookit this, I’ve got s’mores! Yeah, delicious s’mores! And you don’t get any! So ha!

He appeared late in the darkness, a silhouette behind the flickering flame. Apparently all it takes to draw him out is to wander into the middle of his territory, break off some of his cousins’ (?) limbs, light those limbs on fire, and then use that fire to create delicious treats. Mouth filled with chocolate, sugar, and granola, I shouted at him to come over and join the fun times which were being had by the fire.

Upon the last crumb spewing word leaving my mouth, the fire flared up high enough to singe my face. Slendy had vanished while I was temporarily blinded by the flash of light. Assuming that my plan had failed, I resumed my arduous task of lighting a cylindrical piece of sugar on fire. Except now he was just behind me, a fact which, upon realization, caused me to nearly choke to death on the delicious goodies in my mouth.

For once, I reacted to him in a manner other than paralyzing fear; though to be honest, my sudden attempt to throw a marshmallow at his face was less a defiant act of battle, and more a thoughtless, adrenaline driven “Oh shit, I didn’t think he would actually come over here” reaction. I never got to see what the effect of a marshmallow hitting Slender Man would be, for it vanished seconds before touching him. I considered charging at him with my tiny little stick, but whatever excitement had led to me throwing food at him had already been used up, and I was back to watching him helplessly. I saw his tentacles growing, reaching towards me, and then I blacked out.


It was several hours later when I woke up. The scenery around me had shifted from dark ranchland, to my well lit bedroom. Hovering next to my bed was our favorite Slender Man, his face just next to mine. Upon seeing that I was awake, he slowly turned around and walked out from the room. For several minutes, terror gripped me, but when it faded, rage replaced it. I ran out my door screaming in anger, but of course by then, Slender Man was long gone. Off to terrorize some other soul.

Since then, I haven’t been able to find my sleep meds. Obviously Slendy is planning to sell them on the streets so he can afford some novelty ties. It’s only so long before wearing black or red would become boring.
Without the medicine to force my eyes to close at night, I suspect I’m going to be having quite the fun time these coming nights….


At the moment, I have another tab on my browser open, to local news stories. One is featuring a story about the ranch which I spent part of my night in. It used to have 43 longhorn steer roaming it. Now it has zero. All 43 were found, organs ripped out, in a ring around my campsite.

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Blood on the Driveway

Again with the dead animals. What’s the purpose behind it? Is it supposed to be a threat, saying “This could be you”? Or is it a psychological tactic, meant to crack my mind? Though the effectiveness of such tactics are hampered by my familiarity with his methods. I wake up in the morning, find a dead coyote in the driveway, its blood and organs spread across the concrete, and my response is to shrug and think, “Oh, that Slendy’s at it again.”

My parents are suffering worse than I. They called the police, who poked around the place and asked many of their questions. When it was my turn to answer, “Do you have any idea who may have done this?”, I responded truthfully (lying is bad, dontcherknow.) I don’t think they were very appreciative of my response. Saying “A tall faceless magical man in a business suit did it,” has a way of annoying most in the law enforcement business. I get the strange feeling that they may not have believed me.

There still hasn’t been a clear sighting of Slender Man since coming here. The other day, I thought I could feel his presence behind me as I sat at my computer. The sudden dropping of temperature, the hairs rising on the back of my neck, the sense that something incredibly wrong was just behind me…. I didn’t just suspect that he was behind me, I knew he was there. Just inches behind my back, silently watching….

Responding as any other rational man would, I grabbed my laptop with both hands, spun around in my chair and tried to hit him in the head with it. My grand plan to slay the Slender Man once and for all by hitting him with an object failed when the laptop passed through empty air. There was no sign of him, and all feeling of his presence had vanished.

The dead animals, always appearing just out of sight…. It’s as though he’s just toying with me. I’m not prey; I’m a plaything, to be batted back and forth until he grows bored and bites my head off.

Here I repeat something I said earlier in this blog, during similar circumstances: I don’t like being played with.

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