Fog

The rain hasn't let up for days. It's nearly been weeks now, but it's still raining all the time. There's a flood warning in effect for my area, but it seems the water never gets a chance to build up before it evaporates.

Fog is beginning to roll in from the forest. It's coming in slowly, lazily. But it's there, and it will be covering the town eventually.

I have this foreboding feeling, like something terrible is going to happen. Well, terrible things already have, so I guess more wouldn't be surprising.

I haven't seen the tall man since the day I met Andrew, but I know it's out there somewhere. My dreams are haunted by visions of forests, the trees tall and bare, black shimmering bags hanging from their branches.

I don't know what to do - I never did, anyway. It all seems pointless, monotonous. I'm considering going to Andrew's house and... joining him, just to give me a life again.

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.

Lament for the Departed

It's been four days since Kip's death. The only reason why I know how long it's been is because of the clock on my computer. I barely keep track of the sunrises and the sunsets, the days and the nights. Even though now the only tapping is from the constant rain pouring down on the town, I still cannot find sleep. I do not wish for sleep, though - I wish for safety.

I sat in my house in solitude, not able to bring myself to post for awhile after Kip's death. She was my only friend, and now she's been killed. When I close my eyes I see her again, hanging from the tree. Except when I see her, she's not silently swinging in the breeze. She's saying something that I can't hear. However, though I can't lip-read, I know perfectly well what she is telling me - it's all my fault for her death.

I feel that I managed to attract the tall man's attention by going to her - or maybe it already knew, and is just tormenting with these thoughts of self-doubt.

There are tales about this thing. I'm reading the blogs. Following the tales of all these people hunted by it. I suppose normally I'd scoff at the blogs, call them works of fiction. However, now I know... no, now I hope that they're true. Or maybe I'm just insane, and this is all an illusion of my own.

I try not to indulge in thoughts like that.

Besides, how can that be when I feel its gaze everywhere?

It

Calm. Calm. Alright. I need to talk... need to talk about it.

That's what it is. 'It'. Not 'he'.

I suppose I was in some sort of daze when I saw him- it, so I didn't get to see... Well... I- I suppose I should start from the beginning.

About two days ago I went back to Kip's house to talk to her again. To tell her that she was right. The clouds were heavy in the sky, as they had been for the past few weeks. I could almost smell the ozone. The gloomy darkness kept people inside, waiting for a rain that seemed to be late in coming.

The windows in Kip's house were dark, curtains down so that you couldn't see inside. Curious. Outside her house, however, were eleven rhododendrons, placed in a circle around her house as if to ward off someone... or something. I bit my lip as I approached the house - had Kip moved away? That would make sense though, as the rhododendrons were usually placed at the shrine in the woods, not at the house. And usually multiple weren't added; only one.

I shrugged away my confusion and knocked on the door. Like before, there was silence, an eye appearing in the peep-hole, and then the door opened, Kip standing in the frame.

Before she could say anything, words tumbled out of my mouth. "Kip at first I didn't think you were right but then I called the police and then there was distortion and then I went home and then I was oozing stuff out of my ear and I passed out and when I came to it was dark and the clock in my room said it was 11:11 PM and I went to the window and I saw a glimpse of a tall man wearing a suit and I don't know what to do and I'm lonely and want company-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Void. Calm down."

"I'm TRYING to be calm but- there's a stalker tapping on my window!" I took several shallow breaths.

Kip paused, as if trying to piece things together. "Wait- distortion? Tall man? Wearing a suit? No- it can't be... I thought- I mean, it was fun reading about him but- no, no. You have to be lying, it can't be-" She suddenly looked up and stared at something over my shoulder, her face pale. "No."

I whirled around to see what she was looking at, but whatever it was, it seemed to have vanished.

I felt something whip by me, and with a start I turned back, only to find out that Kip was running. But to where?

It soon became apparent.

The forest.

I ran after her, dashing across the grass into the forest, my surroundings seeming to blur as I ran. There was a sensation of pain in my arm as a branch cut into it, and when I looked back I saw I was bleeding - however, I couldn't stop. I needed to keep on Kip's trail. Where did she think she was going? Why was she running in the first place?

From somewhere in front of me, I heard a sickening squelch, like a fruit smashing onto the ground. I picked up my pace, and then bolted through a cluster of dead trees and into a clearing.

What I saw stopped me in my tracks.

I stood in a puddle of crimson, warm and fresh - blood, no doubt about it. It was loose and ran in every direction, but I had stepped into the center of it. In front of me was a great dead tree, but I didn't pay attention to that. Because in front of it was Kip.

What was left of her, anyway.

Her chest was ripped open, all internal organs sans the small intestine either impaled by tree branches or littering the forest floor. The small intestine was wrapped around a tree branch directly above Kip, in a facsimile of a noose. A noose wrapped around Kip's neck.

I looked away from the body, my mind screaming 'no' over and over again, but my mouth unable to form the words.

That's when I saw him.

An impossibly tall, slender man, wearing a black-and-white business suit, toothpick-arms hanging directly by his sides. His face a blank disc. Paler than pale.

Unable to comprehend this, I looked away, something I instantly regretted as I caught a glimpse of Kip again. I doubled over, unable to hold it in - bile splattered on the ground. By then, the thing had gone. And I became aware of something cold in my hand.

A handgun.

As I picked it up to inspect it, black goop poured out, sprawling two words out on the ground:

"you're it"

I blacked out and woke up in my house. For a brief, glorious second I thought it was all a nightmare. Then I realized I was still holding the gun in my hand.

The panic attack lasted for hours afterwards.

I can't really take this anymore. I'm trying not to lose myself to the tapping, but it's happening all the time now. Every day. I can't stand it, don't want to listen to it, and I want to know why this is happening to me of all people. What have I done?

But I already went over that in my last post. I'm just... Just really scared and lonely right now. I want the company of someone other than myself, but I fear going outside. Facing the real world.

You wouldn't believe how much fucking effort I'm putting in to stay calm here. I'm resisting the urge to mash keys on the keyboard, beg for a mercy that won't ever come.

I- I want to see Kip again. Eventually. But can I even leave my house with that... that man killing me? I'm not having the best of times here. I just hope I can hold in until this whole situation ends.

night after night passes by and the trance continues

The ʇappıng, as always, is continuing. However, I tɥinʞ that it is iutǝnsifying, bettıng ןoudǝr. Tɥis ʍorries me, making me ʍonder ʇo wɥɐʇ ǝnd thıs ɯan ʍill go. Wɥy aɯ I the target? That's just... pumb. Nothing makǝs ɐny sense anymore. I feeן poom travelıng closer to me uow, and will 'til I'm bone. It almost feels as if there's uo hope for me, but I hɐve to believe otherwise. I need to have the ʍıllpower ʇo carry on. However, tɥıs problem wou't just bo away ou ıʇs own. I ɥave to make it go away, somehow. Anythıng I can do to ɯake that happen, I will. That's what I shonld do. However, I'ɯ not sure if I hɐve the strength to carry on whıle reʇɐining ɯy sɐuity. I'll try to carry on until I find out wɥat to do ʍhen I makǝ ɯy move, qnʇ I don't know... Shouןd I run? Couןd I run? Or... ɯaybǝ I should fighʇ. Fight foɹ my lifǝ. Fighʇ for my sanity.

I'm considering going to tell Kip. But I don't want ɥer getting cɐught up iu ʇɥis... she's the only friend I reɐlly have.

And I'm feeling so lonely righʇ now.

in a trance under the noise of the night

I'm

still

being

tormented

by

the

noise,

the

repetition,

of

the

tapping

outside.

I

won't

let

this

control

what

I

say,

what

I

do,

but

I'm

not

sure

how

much

of

this

I

can

endure.

There

are

times

when

I

forget

what

I've

done,

times

when

I

blink

and

suddenly

my

hands

have

suddenly

moved.

I'm

asleep

when

awake.