-
Caribou
In another life, perhaps, there had been a little girl named Esse who toed anxiously at the dark gray carpet while her father pulled a thick jacket over her, preparing for the thin sheen of snow that gathered at the tires of her grandfather’s van. In another life, she had once thrown herself onto the cool tile in front of the ticketing counters, bemoaning the idea of leaving her grandparents, had once gleefully tried to climb the Snoopy statue outside one of the play areas for travelling children.
Minneapolis was bitterly familiar territory. I navigated my way from the terminal to the rental desk without glancing at the map, and despite the coffee I sipped - Caribou, a rare treat for someone from the South - I couldn’t help but shiver. There would be no one waiting at the end of the baggage claim. Not even Him. I had a cousin in the city (or, I imagine, used to have), and despite the fact that I would be there for a number of days, had already determined not to see her. A deep ache settled in my gut as I traversed the raised moving walkways; I had no idea just how far His touch had reached. Far enough, I assumed.
The drive out of the city was a slow burn of upturned fields and countless lakes. Large farms spread along softly sloping hills and touched up to the worn two-lane highway, sporting the recognizable till lines that indicated the beginning of planting for corn. Tractors spat out thick puffs of smog and shuddered as they traced along dark soil, beasts barely woken from winter hibernation. The highway curved around a particularly large lake; a flock of common loons rose from the water in a flurry of black and white.
Phaethon nudged gently at my mind. I could almost feel his foreign sentience layered over mine as he guided me to my destination. I pulled my car off of the highway and into a town that was little more than a church and a cluster of houses. A radar image practically blipped in my mind, and as I drew closer to her - my target, the third of four - I could feel Him, faint but nearby. I knew it as soon as I pulled up to her house.
She was, without a doubt, scared of Him and paranoid beyond belief. So I waited. Gave her a few days, her last few days.
-
Mercer
Mercer Rackham was different. Different than any man I’ve ever met, different than anyone who has ever been touched by the Slender Man. Different from any other person I’ve taken. Like Killjay, he knew that I was coming. Unlike her, he knew I was coming before I ever told him. He probably knew even before I did.
I didn’t need to kill him, in the beginning. Killjay had been close enough to the Slender Man – had practically served Him – to protect me for days. But Phaethon, who had discovered Rackham’s existence in the first place, kept pushing. This could be it, I could practically hear him saying, this could be the one who ends it all. Finishes Him forever. There was no arguing it.
My flight ended in a small regional airport, the type with three terminals and one baggage claim. I took the late night bus from the airport, riding along a narrow, tree-lined highway until the bus came to its final stop. Then I walked, following the highway until it turned into a single lane road, until the asphalt turned to rock and dirt, until it dead ended at a rotting wooden gate in the middle of the woods. Jumping the fence, I took an overgrown path up into the forest. Never having been there before, I followed Phaethon’s gentle prodding – he kept me moving even as the night grew blacker. The trees began to press in more tightly, blocking out the last remaining light from the moon and stars. Picking up my pace, I continued to follow the fairly treacherous patch. I began to see a pale break amid the black of the trees. Knowing He could only come so close, I swallowed my panic. Kept Him in the peripheral.
Rackham’s house was as worn as the path that led to it. Light glowed through the windows despite it being nearly 3 in the morning. The wood door creaked under my hand as I knocked. Yes, I knocked.
“Come in, we don’t have all night,” a voice called from the other side. Pushing the door open made the whole house shudder slightly; I wondered if perhaps the house would collapse when I shut the door. Tentatively I stepped inside. Shut the door quietly behind me. Rackham’s house – part cabin, part storage shed – was filled to the brim with destruction. Great large knives, red with rust or blood, lay scattered on the floor and tables. A variety of guns and explosives lined the walls, and in the corner, something that looked very much like a cannon sat under a stained sheet. Rackham himself waited at a table on the far side of the single-room house, the table in front of him cleared but for a chess board. A worn fiddle rested by his feet.
“You made me wait,” he said, voice surprisingly light for his age and situation. “It’s dangerous to wait when your time’s already so short.” He fingered one of pieces on the board – the white pawn. “Sit down. Come play a game before the Black King arrives.”
I moved toward him, sat down across the table from him. Behind him loomed an open window, and behind that, an empty face. I shook my head. “I don’t know how to play, and he’s already here. Followed me up the path.”
Rackham scowled. “You’d have been wise to learn how to play the game. I can’t imagine why He’s kept you alive after denying His love for so long.”
“He’s certainly tried to destroy me, especially once He realized I wasn’t playing by His rules anymore.”
“Foolish. We all play in His pit until He decides our part is done. You may think you’re playing your solo, but inevitably, it is His magum opus. None of us – not even you – knows how the song ends. He just plays, and we play along.”
He began to tell me of his life, explaining his service to the Slender Man in beautiful, clipped sentences. For the first time, I realized how deeply I was dug in. How many people He had touched, how many people He controlled, or searching for. When Rackham was done, he stood up, grabbed his fiddle, and turned to face the window.
“My King.” He tilted his head, a half-bow to the creature beyond the glass. I could hardly believe it – the deference, the loving fear. Anger began to wrack my bones.
“You know I will destroy Him?” I asked Rackham as he settled down on his bed.
“You and I will serve Him to the end,” he said. He plucked a single note on his fiddle and closed his eyes.
“I am old – ” in that moment, Rackham spoke my name. The fury that had been building deflated instantaneously. How long had he known of me? “I am old, and no longer of use. I know that, and so does He.”
Indeed, the Slender Man remained outside, even though the barrier was small enough for Him to enter, come closer. After taking Rackham, I wouldn’t be able to reach Him in the brief amount of time the killing gave me to strike Him. My hand, clutching a new knife, faltered. It made me nervous: why did it seem as though He wanted this to happen? There was no point in ending Rackham.
“Go,” he whispered, his fingers brushing along his fiddle once more. The knife dropped, struck true, and Mercer Rackham was no more.
I left a message that should post only once I’m far, far away.
I walked back down the path, listening as the birds began to stir. Dawn would be approaching in a few quick hours, and I had a flight to Minnesota to catch. I did not wipe the tears from my eyes.
-
Killjay
I’m tired, dreamers. More tired than I’ve been in a long,
long time.
Phaethon is quiet. I can feel him, not quite removed from my mind. He’s gloating. Typhos is silent. I can’t feel him at all.
In the busy terminal of the airport where I wait for my connecting flight, I feel very, very alone.
I’m not going home – or, well, what has become a figment of home, that place where Elle disappeared and Lisse waits. No, there are three more stops on this trip. I can only pray to God, whatever there is left of Him in this world, that the next three are easier than the first.
During the hottest part of the day, I slept curled up against the stone wall of an abandoned house that adjoined the plaza. The house itself – stone, wood, and dark, hardened mud in some places – had the looks of having been abandoned by its inhabitants mid-stride: the naked bulb left flickering in the living room, soup in a cracked bowl sitting cold on the table, the television on and playing a loop of the same commercial in Arabic, over and over and over
I wanted to sleep in the cot set up in a room to the side of the kitchen, but as I lay down I felt warmth, as if someone had just risen from it. The sensation never faded. He stood outside in the center of the plaza, head cocked toward the window that sat open in the building directly across from mine. He waited, almost patiently, knowing that eventually I would move from the small home. Shuddering, I did not think of what had happened to its prior occupants.
The entire town was empty but for me, Him, and her.
At dusk I crossed the plaza. The Slender Man had not moved from His place in the center of the town; I skirted around Him silently, an angry planet forced to revolve around a black sun. He turned, and for a moment I thought He might step toward me despite my wards. Frigid air washed over my skin as He instead disappeared. There was a sharp crack and the smell of ozone and I was alone. Continuing across the plaza, I made my way to a set of stairs wedged between two crooked-looking buildings. Up the stairs, behind the door, and in a room not so far away, was the girl I needed to kill.
Killjay – for I knew no other name but that – was waiting for me, but did not expect me. She was small and toned with a shock of red hair that slid straight down her shoulders; everything about her screamed Don’t fuck with me. I found her sitting on a small sofa facing the door, arm already in motion to raise the gun that had sat on the table in front of her. A flash of surprise crossed her face as I entered and she hesitated, giving me enough time to charge across the small room. A grunt and a flash of dull silver – the gun dropped from her hand and skittered along the dusty floor. I had her momentarily pinned there on the sofa, using one knee in her gut to keep her stationary while I pulled my knife from my back pocket.
“Motherfucker,” she spat, struggling against me. “You’re not what I was expecting.”
“Neither were you,” I hissed. My knife found its way to her throat. “What kind of name is Killyjay, anyway?”
“Fuck you.” With a spasm of speed and strength, Killjay knocked me back with her free elbow, causing me to lose my balance. She slipped out from underneath me and rolled off of the couch, scrambling for something. As I regained my footing, she pulled a knife from under the couch.
“What happened to Jeremy?” she demanded, “What happened to the others?”
I felt Him a split second before I saw Him. He began moving toward me as soon as He appeared, angry as ever.
“Can you see Him?” I asked, ignoring Killjay’s question. The woman spun around and stumbled back when she found herself staring up into His nearly featureless face. I lurched forward and reached around, but my knife missed its target, instead digging into the Killjay’s chest and hitting at her sternum.
Killjay’s knees buckled with the pain, but as she fell she twisted her body, refocusing on me. I had momentarily forgotten the blade in her hand until I felt it slice into my cheek and drag its way up into my hairline. She pulled at me, taking me down with her, and I only just caught myself from fully collapsing on top of her. My knife landed near my hands, but Killjay caught my wrist as I lunged for it.
“Why would He do this?” she hissed. Behind the resolute set of her face, I saw a spark of fear. She propped herself up slightly, turned to Him.
“WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?” The scream echoed and cracked and suddenly He was flowing toward me and Killjay surrounded by swirling masses of arm-like energy that reached out toward me.
“After everything I did!” she continued screaming. She started fighting again, pushing against my weight, punching, scratching, kicking and then-
I felt something pressing against me, against my entire body, saw her staring at me intently. As she did so, everything became sharp and my head erupted in pain; It seemed almost as if something was trying to tear my mind from my body and wedge itself in my place. The Slender Man stilled but His tentacles remained curled above me, waiting. Gasping, I groped for the knife – I grabbed it by the blade, slicing open my hand.
“Let me in!” Killjay shouted, fighting against me on more than one plane. My entire body went numb. I was drifting-
“NO!” Phaethon, so silent, suddenly erupting in my brain, out through my mouth. I shook, righted the knife and lifted it above Killjay’s chest. Slender Man’s dark arms lashed against my defenses, Killjay’s words became a deep scream of anger and agony, she was channeling Him, He was speaking through her and the room started to shake and everything began to crash down around us and I thrust the knife down,
deep into her chest, pulled it out and plunged it into her throat, ignoring the blood, ignoring the pressure of the air around me, ignoring Him as I killed her
again and again.
He stilled once more. The whipping arms disintegrated around me as He was pushed back to the other end of the room. I heaved myself up. Killjay’s laptop had been left on and open, I noticed. It had fallen off of the couch as we struggled, but was unharmed. I left a message, blood spilling out on the keys as I frantically typed. And then I ran. I ran and ran and ran until I was out of the town. When I finally stopped and turned around it was gone.
An over-bright flight attendant is announcing the boarding for my flight. So for now, I must go. Only a few hours now, and I’ll be in a place very different from that damned desert town.
There is a fiddler who waits for me in a quiet place. He welcomes death. I hope to bring it.
-
Everybody moan, everybody shake
http://oabyssofmonsters.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-kind-of-name-is-killjay-anyway.html
-
You are not alone
And for you, there will be no peace.
There is the chirp and clack of small birds who pick aimlessly at the dusty ground of the plaza down below. I couldn’t tell you exactly how I got here; when you are not quite asleep, little dreamers, you can never quite wake up.
I regained my consciousness the same way I lost it: to the sound of Typhos shrieking and groaning in my ears. An angry freight train barreling over my mind. The next sensations followed in a jumble of bright sun warm day smooth bone, and when I finally pried my eyes open I found my hand wrapped around Tai’s abandoned humerus. My stomach didn’t seem to get the joke and instead went sight-seeing along the gravel next to my car. Emptied, I fought to piece everything that had happened back together. Tai. The bar. Him. The time-
An anxious hand clutched around the pocket watch and pulled it out. Not enough time, never enough time. At least two days had passed. Everything was hazy. For the first time in months I was shaking. The dial on the watch shivered.
Shoving the watch back into my pocket, I stood up and looked around. I was alone, all but for Tai’s bones. I left them, even though I shouldn’t have. There was just too much happening, too much pressure on my head. Phaethon’s voice was beginning to trickle in over Typhos’ screech. He thrummed somewhere around my nasal cavity, and when I closed my eyes I could see the faintest outline of his grin.
Let me, little one. Fainter than Typhos, whose words I could hear unhindered. Phaethon was pressing, trying hard to move to me. The inexplicable sensation of ghosts. For a moment I glimpsed Eridanos in his words and nearly pushed him away. Phaethon pushed harder. I know- I know where to go. Let me, little one. Dream.
I relaxed. I could feel Phaethon slip further - down the larynx, squeezed across the lungs, pumped straight through the heart - until it felt almost as though he had settled himself down into my brain. Typhos kept screaming my name, over and over again.
Esse, Esse, Esse, he will destroy you you will destroy you you he will Esse destroy you-
And then everything became muted. I felt a tight grin settled over my face. Phaethon. I walked to my car, sat down, clenched and unclenched my fists. And then that was that.
I never really fell asleep. But everything after that settled back into a dream-haze. I watched Esse’s body start the car, drive to the airport. From above, I commented on the legality of Esse’s documentation, to practicality of booking an international flight on a limited bank account. And the entire time, Phaethon murmured back to me, omniscient dream narrator: Hush. You are running out of time and there is nothing more important than this.
Phaethon had, as I came to understand, found something the night I killed Tai. When that crack opened up along the Slender Man’s skull (something I thought I had imagined; something I did imagine but Phaethon drew from anyway), Phaethon was able to see a handful of people who were lost. People like Elle, who had been tainted by Him. People like myself, who had killed because of the Slender Man. People He wanted to find. People we were going to take.And that is how I found myself here. Across an ocean, near a desert, in a town that has slipped under the normal flow of time like one of the Earth’s rocky, buckling plates. The town is melting to the core, and empty but for me and her. My little lost one, the one Phaethon saw. She is waiting in a room, not so far away. I can see a bundle of red hair now, and am aware of a flash of metal that says “gun”.
I don’t know what her connection to Him ever was, but even from a distance I can feel His touch around her. It feels dark and tight, a sick black cloud that writhes like a hungry snake. The Slender Man Himself has been waiting, just on the edge of the empty town, face pointed towards me like an open eye. Phaethon was right. She will be powerful.
Phaethon has relinquished his strange control over me, and Typhos is deathly silent. All there is is the birds, singing their flat songs.
-
With ash in your mouth
He was dark-haired with a pale, narrow face. I’d been at the bar for less than fifteen minutes when he came up to me; snaring a drunk man with little more than a smile and a tilt of the head was embarrassingly easy. Even for little lost Esse. His hand snaked around my shoulders before he had even said hello, and despite how irresistibly familiar his face was I knew he would never recognize me.
“I’m Tai. Are you waiting for someone, or can I steal this seat?” His free hand gestured to the empty bar seat next to mine. Standing up, he came just above my head (I imagined his surprise when I stood up, and smiled again. He took it as a good sign), but behind the glaze of drunkenness his eyes were a not-quite-right shade of blue.
”Kay,” I said. I’d been switching names around strangers more and more often. “I’m not much for criminal activity, but I’ll distract the bartender while you make off with the seat.”
Another smile, a well-placed laugh. As I pulled the seat out for him I tried to forget why I’d been drawn to him in the first place. Tai had not-quite-right blue eyes, so he was a completely different person. He sat down and I could see his eyes struggling to focus on my face. I thought I had about twenty minutes and fought the impulse to check. There was no point in glancing to the clock over the bar – when I looked past Tai to the windows that spanned one wall of the bar, I could see Him staring in. Just waiting. He could have come closer (we both knew I had far too little time), but He knew I would come out soon enough. Not that desperate, not yet. Tai’s hand moved from my shoulder to my knee in one clumsy motion.
“So you’re here alone,” Tai pressed, leaning in. A warm breath rolled over my face, a sharp mix of beer and breath mints. The man came prepared, had perhaps done this before. Well, so had I.
“Just me, myself, and I.” A deliberate pause. “Unless you’d like to change that for me?”
We left the bar ten minutes later, and I let Tai lead our erratic stumble to my car.
In the car Tai leaned over and pressed his lips to my neck, sort of rubbing them around instead of actually kissing. Much of my concentration was spent in watching both the time and road as I drove, but a small voice in my head reminded me that I needed to keep up the ruse until I reached the depot. Only a few minutes now. We turned down a rough gravel road – in my peripheral vision I saw Tai’s eyes narrow until my hand found its way to his thigh.
“I know this cool place – it’ll be fun. I’m pretty sure – ”
Typhos screamed. I jumped, foot jarring the accelerator. Gravel spun under the tires and cracked like tiny bullets and my heart pumped painfully. He kept screaming. I could feel him pressing in around me. Everything in my vision swirled: the trees that lined the road curled into writhing dark arms that stretched towards the car and I desperately tried not to swerve away, knowing it was Typhos twisting my vision. Something like a razorblade seemed to working its way deeper and deeper into my stomach. My grip on Tai’s thigh slackened, but Typhos’ rage hardly subsided. Up ahead I could make out the form of the depot – some sort of old warehouse by the train tracks – though the building shuddered and flexed as I peered at it through the fog of Typhos. I managed to glance at Tai. Stopped the car.
“I don’t think we’ll be bothered by anyone out here,” I said, leaning into him. Heat radiated from his body; I tried to clutch at the warmth through his shirt, gripping on to him and worming my way over to him and the passenger seat. Tai’s eyes fluttered shut, then leisurely opened as I opened the passenger side door and slid off of his lap.
“Where ya going, darling?” he mumbled, reaching lazily out to me. I watched as his skin distorted angrily – Typhos, getting stronger. Worse. I took his hand and pulled him out of the car.
“Somewhere where we can be alone.”
Tai walked behind me for a few seconds before he stopped. The grip on my hand tightened. My vision suddenly cleared and there He was, dark and glorious and always looming, less than five feet away. Typhos buzzed around the back of my neck and down my arm, stopping at where Tai still held me.
“Wh- what the fu- Kay, Kay wha-“
The man backed up slowly, pulling me with him. Looking back, I saw his face, annihilated with terror and I saw another face, one from not very long ago, and Typhos swelled up again and screamed.
“Kay, what the fuck is that thing we need to go now!” He skittered away from me and slammed himself into the car, wits still muddled with alcohol, and tried to open the passenger door. It was very, very locked. He turned, eyes spinning in their sockets, and began to yell at me.
“Kay, get in the car and drive that thing-“
“Tai. Tai, be quiet.”
The Slender Man drew closer, dead white hand reaching towards me. I had a minute, if I was lucky. His hand snapped around my purse – it was just outside of my protection – and jerked back, breaking it away from my shoulder and flinging it away. The motion was nearly imperceptible: I saw His hand flash toward me, felt the strain of my purse, and then He was deathly still once more. The purse landed about four yards away, and as soon as it hit the ground, it began to deteriorate. I looked back to Tai. His face was lined with wrinkles, hair greying, eyes still watery.
“What are you doing? Who are you?” he wheezed, staring at his rheumatic hands. His face creased and shrank as the Slender Man approached the two of us. Typhos flared up again, his unearthly screech sounding more and more like a siren, then a train whistle, then an angry thumping. Days and nights passed as I walked towards Tai, he grew older and younger as the Slender Man grew angrier and got closer, reached out towards me again.
His eyes bulged and he cried, not understanding. He screamed and flailed and tried to run but his knees buckled. I pulled against him, and reached for my knife.
And then I remembered my purse, laying decomposed and out of reach. My knife was gone and I had seconds left. I could feel the Slender Man inches away, could feel Typhos screaming and tightening around my neck. Tai shuddered.
“Wh-what is going o”
My hands made their way to his throat. Raising his hands, he tried to push me away, but he was too frail to resist. Fingers pressing into Tai’s neck, I lifted the man up a few inches and then slammed his head down into the gravel. There was the sound of rocks scraping against one another. I pulled up and slammed down again. Again. His skull finally buckled under the weight of my hands. I felt his blood begin to chill on my skin.
The scream that ripped out of Typhos was nauseating and suddenly I felt gravel cutting into my arms and legs. It was followed almost immediately by a furious roar as the Slender Man was once again flung away from me, protection in place. From almost twenty feet away, I saw His face contort. A wrinkled looking line emerged from the Slender Man’s forehead. It twitched for a moment and then suddenly split in half, creating a gaping hole in His head. It stretched into what could only be an upside-down smile.
For the next few seconds I felt Typhos beating against my face, tugging at my arms and hair, his rage giving him the unknown energy to truly touch me, speak to me.
“WHY DID YOU DO THIS?” he screamed. “I CAN SEE YOU, ESSE.”
The world grew hazy. The smile. Tai’s quickly rotting body and the flashes of day as the Slender Man whipped time around in a fury. As I passed out, I swore I heard crying.
-
cinder and smoke
Perhaps it happened when I dropped it, fumbling for my knife. Perhaps it happened when I was checking my clocks and set it down to make note of the times. Or maybe, in a moment of sheer carelessness I left it where He could reach it without drawing my attention. Regardless, shortly after writing the last post I discovered that my pocket watch - the object by which I live and could very well die - read the wrong time. Had I been on my own He would have me now. Your life is pure dumb luck, Esse. It was Phaethon who made me realize that my watch had been sabotaged and that I was protected from the Slender Man for far less time than I thought; Phaethon roared around my head from the time I woke up to the time I figured it out, a lion for a lifesaver.
I don’t know how He did it, but somehow He affected the time around my watch, taking it back into the past to make it seem as though I had far more time than I did in reality. By the time I realized it, I had less than an hour left before He would be able to take me. I called Lisse, determining that there would be no better moment to end it than now, but she wouldn’t pick up. Drew was back home for a few days. Elle, of course, was gone.
Phaethon continued to rumble indistinctly, barely coherent now that I was not dreaming. Blindly wandering around the small apartment I’d been renting, I somehow put myself together: makeup, high heels, knife, pills, nice dress. Large purse, rubber gloves. Typhos, silent while Phaethon raged, suddenly flared up. I could feel him hiss, practically crackling in the air around me - the first physical presence I’d ever felt from him. I put on some lip gloss. He grew angrier, buzzing around my head, tightening and closing in on me. And with forty minutes left to live, I did the only thing I could think of - I went to a bar.
-
Trying to see
The sharp edge of a branch jabbed into my leg. Metal beneath my feet, cool but rough. Perhaps rusty. I could see nothing, but walked forward anyway. A crush of pine needles.
There was a voice that from a distance sounded like creaking wood or angry rain clouds. Phaethon. He spoke, and for the first time I could head every word, reverberating in the chamber of my skull. Something warm clutched at my hand, clinging more and more tightly until my hand went cold. It let go and another voice entered, snaking around and moving closer to my body. Typhos. Typhos hissed into my ear, pleading and damning at the same time. A train whistle suddenly overwhelmed his voice and I stepped back. The train tracks were suddenly underneath me and I was struggling not to fall when Typhos fled and yet another voice came barreling towards me and still everything was black. Him, the deep rumbling of a charging locomotive, trying to and trying to and trying to and trying to
take me down. I spun, trying to gauge where I was, trying to escape without running. My sense of space, time, was all disoriented. The train passed, whistling angry, but I managed to pull myself away from the tracks in time. Wet leaves under my hands. Phaethon’s voice re-emerged as the train horn dimmed, and he was just as angry. Phaethon came closer and he called me, he called to me and he knew my name and knew where I was and could see me even though I could see nothing, let alone him-
And when I woke up, there was a post on tumblr and a line scrawled on a piece of paper on my bed. I’m not entirely certain what it is, but it reads:
Phaethon?
M8R-f7cy91
Wake up.
-
I received an email from Typhos. Come see.
irc.zangaroa.com
#elysian -
THE SIGN
Dark.
Darkness…
It’s so dark…
Typhos, you are now being read. A chaotic mess, nothing will control you. Nothing. The eyes think they can control you, their ever staring mass follow you, but never touching you. Can they not touch you, or will they not touch you?
Don’t. Don’t go that far, you plead. But I cannot help it, despite you.
The cold night air is angry against your bare skin. You had just walked outside after a long empty night of sleep. The sun sky was empty, as was your mind. A little hole in the ink keeps you from entirely losing yourself. Your sister is here, somewhere. Close. She is with him, but why?
But it does not phase you, as you continue walking. The air of a train horn echos through the ink, asking you to come closer. A track looms ahead, the rocky hill lifting up to the metal tracks. He’s still watching nearby, but your sister is closer. She looks cold. Colder than the air. A jagged piece of glass extends from her face. You remember that face. Remembering scares her away, back to him.
As you get closer, the skin on your feet lifts off the muscle and tendons. The ground seems to be covered in liquid. If feels good, it feels warm. A train flies by, over your head, onto him. Or where he used to be, he’s no longer there.
You are not afraid, your feet are gone. You are now on your knees. You place your face in the warm. Your face is gone. Your arms are gone. You are gone.
You cross the tracks.
A butterfly lands on your shoulder.
Submitted by Ophion.
-
THE ANGER
Innocence is coming. I can feel her. She needs to be quick.
http://minus.com/mmAVcYXry#Submitted by Typhos as I was writing the last post.
-
I am not alone
Perhaps you have noticed.
When “Eridanos” “returned”, another came as well, a faceless string of text in an email that called itself Phaethon. Phaethon continued to send me emails and comment on posts, which seemed to irk Him to no end. It was Phaethon who led me to realize that the thing commenting as Eridanos was not the dead girl herself, but the Slender Man channeling His own voice through hers. Phaethon, and those like him, does not have visible, physical shape. In pictures he represents himself as The Grin. You have probably seen it - him - before. For a long time, it was only Phaethon. I could hear him, as I can hear him now, just off to the side of my head, though I rarely understand his words. When he is angry he sounds like the creak of old wood just before it snaps. When he truly has something to say, he types it out. A ghostwriter, of sorts.
Now there are others. Ophion, who Phaethon coaxed out. She used to be a person once - a friend of mine, from when I was very, very young. I realize now she was followed by the Slender Man, whom she called Mr. Lanksy. She was killed around the age of five, possibly by someone seeking to destroy Him. I had completely forgotten about it until Phaethon called her forward. She isn’t afraid of Him, doesn’t hate Him, though I can’t understand why. Ohpion - Ellen - curls around my shoulders, warm and catlike.
And then there is Typos.
He was human too. He was killed. He was followed by the Slender Man. He is the furthest away, though Phaethon is drawing him closer. Typhos is trying to get through a number of doors, I think, so that he can be with Phaethon - that is what the clues, as well as the massive coded circle, have been all about. I think I have solved it, though I could still use a second opinion.
I don’t like to talk about Typhos. Typhos is a shuttering monster that pounds at a door closed between he and I. Hisses under the cracks. I don’t like to talk about Typhos.
Nonetheless, they are, I believe, roughly on my side. They work under the grin of Phaethon. I realized it might have been strange, to read the comment on posts and well as the submissions from someone other than me, so I thought it best to explain. The best that I can. The are ghost-like but not ghosts. Powerful. What they lack in corporeal form, they make up in sight, the ability to come closer to Him, to be everywhere. They, I believe, have all been destroyed by Him. They, I believe, seek to destroy Him as I do - or at least help me to Lisse.
Let us all just hope little Esse is not wrong.
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Is The Innocence next? Everything spins circles.
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Anonymous asked: I don't want to go in. I DON'T WANT TO GO IN. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME. WHY. IT WAS NEVER MY FAULT. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU. I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU.
Wha?
Oh. The Anger.
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Anonymous asked: The door opened.
What now?
