Can You Be Free?

I couldn't take it anymore. The walls of my house were closing in, the drumming rain was only sparking my annoyance, and I was running out of food, so I just... ran outside.

The first breath of fresh air, tinged with the smell of dampness, was like a wake-up call to me. I snapped out of the haze I'd been in during the last few days. I've realized that I'm better off outside than inside. Better free than captive.

I sort of just... wandered. I walked down the sidewalk in some sort of daze, avoiding everybody else, wandering about with their umbrellas. Do I care about getting rain on me? Fuck no. Bring it on, Mother Nature.

...okay, now I'm sort of scaring myself. I don't think I've ever cursed so... loosely before. It's just that everything's been weighing me down on me recently, and...

Never mind.

I was turning around the corner and that's when I saw it. The tall 'man'. The man-who-wasn't. Looming from the forests, its tentacles supporting it like legs, a grotesque animal, ready to pounce.

And then it vanished.

I stared at the spot where it used to be, almost locked in place. Then I noticed that nobody else was reacting. It was only me. I couldn't help but fear that I was going insane, that this was simply a hallucination.

That's when somebody tapped on my shoulder.

I whirled around, ready to run, if it was the monster, if it was about to kill me-

It was a normal person. Just a normal person. His hair was messy and scars were slashed across his  face. But at least it wasn't anything that could kill me right there and then.

"You saw it too?" he asked, pointedly gazing at where the 'man' used to be.

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

"That means you're being hunted."

Another nod. "It... it killed my friend, Ki-" I stopped myself. Why was I telling this stranger this stuff?

I changed the subject. "Who are you?"

The stranger glanced up and down the now-empty street, waiting a tantalizing second before saying, "Just call me Andrew. Not Andy, Andrew. And you?"

"Void," I replied. "Why are you talking to me? Wouldn't it be safer to... run? If you're being hunted?"

Andrew smiled, his teeth startlingly white. "If that's the case, then shouldn't you run?"

"I- I can't. I wouldn't make it five miles before... it killed me." I paused. "What is it's name?"

There it was again - that smile. It frustrated me that he knew things that didn't. "It doesn't have one. But some call it the slender man."

"Isn't... Isn't that a name?"

Andrew shook his head. "It's more like... a description. Accurate, no? And, to answer your other question, I am not being hunted. I am a survivor."

Disbelief flickered onto my face. "A survivor? How? He- it- it killed my friend without any trouble. How could you survive?"

"I serve." Andrew's expression grew solemn. "I serve to save myself. It's a lonely life, but at least I have a life to live."

I started. "You... serve? What do you mean, you serve? Who do you... the- the tall man?"

Andrew sighed and nodded. "I serve to save myself," he repeated. "I do his bidding. I hear- voices in my head. They- they talk, on... and... on, and they t-tell me to do... things." Andrew's voice dropped into a near whisper. "You can save yourself, too. We can be brothers, bound together by survival. And when everyone else in this town is dead- we'd be the last ones standing."

"Can... can I have some time to decide?" I asked him.

Andrew smiled. "You can have all the time you want. When you've reached a decision, just... come to my house. It's the one with the 11 on the mailbox."

"If I say no... will you kill me?"

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that? But if that is your choice, I urge you to reconsider. We can be survivors."

At home I looked at the gun, holding it in my hands. The last thing Andrew said to me still rang through my head.

We can be survivors.