Ars Goetia

The Art of Sorcery... It's beyond anything I've ever tried before, but Damien was right about its usefulness. Just the set up for it is time and resource intensive - and on such short notice, getting everything needed was some kind of hell. I even had to make use of a substitute in a few cases. However, as an extension of my own will and belief, the Goetia wasn't affected, at least that I could tell. I spent hours reading through the book before coming to a decision about which spirit (or demon, whichever phrasing you prefer - the copy I worked with said spirit) to call upon. In the end, I settled on Sabnock, one of Damien's recommendation:

"(43.)  SABNOCK.—The Forty-third Spirit, as King Solomon commanded them into the Vessel of Brass, is called Sabnock, or Savnok. He is a Marquis, Mighty, Great and Strong, appearing in the Form of an Armed Soldier with a Lion’s Head, riding on a pale-coloured horse.  His office is to build high Towers, Castles and Cities, and to furnish them with Armour, etc.  Also he can afflict Men for many days with Wounds and with Sores rotten and full of Worms.  He giveth Good Familiars at the request of the Exorcist. He commandeth 50 Legions of Spirits; and his Seal is this, etc."

As I began the actual ritual of invocation - making sure Ronnie, Sara and any other potential distractions were in some other room and having made the room as dark as possible - I could immediately feel a change in the air around me, as if a charge had entered it. As the ritual went on, the charge of energy grew in intensity slowly until it finally leveled out at a pressure that subtly itched at my nerves. Though that may have just been my nervousness in the experience - more than once through the process I almost lost my handle on the ritual. A sudden spike in the pressure of the energy gave me a shock, and I felt as though it was almost a physical thing - but only almost. Then a half-heard voice, almost an illusory sound, forced my eyes shut -  and when I opened them again there he... it... was: Sabnock, called before me, powerful. True to the Goetia, he sat upon a pale horse, armed as a Roman legionnaire with a simple cape lined with a purple seam - and his head was at once awesome and frightening. After I moved past the shock of his arrival, I explained to him what I desired. Then commanded he do it. After a motion that I took for a sign of assent, he vanished from my sight and the energy in the room relaxed - though I could feel a subtle change in the nature of the hum of energy that remained; as if it now had direction, focus, instead of merely presence. I must have made some pronounced reaction to his presence, because Kal asked after what had made me jump as I apparently did. I almost went off on him for missing what had just happened - but then I caught the genuine confusion in his eyes and I realized that he must not have seen Sabnock. 

Even now, hours later, I can still feel his energy everywhere in the apartment. Kal, who can feel it too, explored its boundaries and found that the feeling extends about a football field's distance away in any direction from our apartment, with the fringes less saturated than the main room of our place - the epicenter, the site of the ritual. I don't know if Ronnie can feel it and Sara... I doubt she feels much of anything at all... It's odd - though I can feel a foreign nature to the energy, at the same time I can also feel something of myself in it. I feel as though, if I so chose, I could change the focus of Sabnock, of myself, and accomplish something far different, far greater in spectacle... But there is no time for that.

Kal and I have neither seen Slender Man nor felt his presence since the ritual. The energy no longer rubs my nerves raw. I think we are safe here now. Though I don't know for how long.

-Michenab

Previous/Next

The She-Devil.

I went back to Ronnie's, after... after whatever it was that happened at Burger King. She was still trying to get some kind of reaction out the girl. I guess her name is Sara. I tried to relax. I saw Kal's message to me - and ignored it. I tried to put that whole encounter out of my mind, tried to ignore the fact that Ronnie was fussing over an empty shell of a girl in the next room - but then a little flash of movement outside of a window of Ronnie's house (her parents do quite well) caught my eye. Closer inspection revealed a view of the street, lit in the eerie way only streetlamps can accomplish. And directly beneath one was him. It was copied terribly out of every bad horror flick, but it was pulled off artfully. Nothing should be that terrifying, nothing should be that... that other. 


I began collecting all my things, everything I'd brought, into my bag, then went for the girl. Ronnie tried to stop me, asked me where I was going, but I didn't answer. I couldn't. Sara and I had to leave. We had to get away from Ronnie. Ronnie wasn't safe with us around. Even so, I heard her grabbing her car keys, and I felt, in some small way, reassured by that. I was heading back to the apartment. Where I am now. On the quickest way from Ronnie's place to mine is a street that is almost completely dark for a decent stretch of road. Only the moon and stars gave light to it. I thought nothing of it. Until, moving at the upper edge of the speed limit, I was forced to slam on the breaks because there he was again. Standing there, immovable. I heard Ronnie's breaks squealing as I began to curse and flash my highbeams on and off, not daring to move. Then I accidentally turned my lights off. The dead silence of the encounter at Burger King began to creep in on me. Ronnie honked her horn, snapping me out of the same paralysis I had felt earlier and I slammed the gas petal, no doubt leaving a trail of rubber on the road, before even considering to flip the lights back on.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, but the paranoia - the thought that I might run into that thing again - soaked through me. When we finally got to the complex, I heard Ronnie begin to protest about coming where Kal might be, but I didn't respond then either. I had to keep moving. I'm sorry for ignoring her but... I just had to keep moving. Holding the girl in my arms, bag slung over my shoulder, I began running once I got inside. Behind me I heard the slap-slap slap-slap of Ronnie trying to keep up in her flip-flops. I only had to make it to the third floor. I tried the elevator first - but as it opened, I caught a flash of red - horrible red - in what seemed the shape of a tie and bolted for the stairs. Only two flights. I only had to make it up two flights, to the  third floor.

Somehow I did it. Somehow, Ronnie and I and the girl... we all made up there and to the apartment. Somehow we
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Sorry folks, Henry had to go off and deal with his girlfriend’s temper tantrum, I decided to post this up in case she kills him in there, she is not a happy girl. 

She doesn’t like me much… not that I can really blame her; last time we met I tried to shove her back into the hallway. Funny thing there, that was my exact same response when I saw Henry lead her in this time. But between the look of terror on his face and her damned persistence I eventually had to cave. She doesn’t trust me, she hasn’t seen it yet and that’s why she needs to leave.

Henry wants what’s best for her, I can tell, but he’s also in a somewhat fragile state now. His world is falling apart and he thinks he needs her as some sort of comfort. I’ve tried convincing him to send her home, or… encouraging her that she’d be happier anywhere but here. It’s not going well. Like I said she’s fucking persistent; and now she, Henry, along with little Sara (it is her, though Veronica hasn’t allowed me to give her a decent look over) are holed up in Henry’s room yelling at each other.

She doesn’t understand why they’re here, because you know I’m a childnapper/probable rapist and whatnot. The more she yells about it the less I want to kick her out. Maybe I should just let her stay and suffer whatever fate awaits us. No, that’s a cruel thought and not fair at all. Especially given what she “knows” it’s a perfectly valid assumption. Still the accusation hurts.

Henry on the other hand is refusing to explain, he just keeps telling her to trust him, to ignore me, and that despite appearances this is all for the best. He doesn’t want to anger her further, doesn’t want to kick her out. Her wanting to be here probably seems like some big gesture to him.

He’s wrong.

She needs to go. It’s for her best interest.

~Kal

Previous/Next

We're All Crazy On the Inside

It took a while, but I finally was able to get a call through to Kal. I'm not sure why, but recently I seem to have been having trouble getting calls from people lately. Anyhow, we agreed on a place to meet. I left the girl with Ronnie and had my dagger hanging off my belt, hidden by my jacket. As I drove to the rendevouz (a Burger King not too far from campus), I noticed the streets become foggy – though it wasn’t enough to hinder my vision to register much beyond simply being a little odd. When I finally got to the meeting place, there was no one there but me. At first I thought Kal had simply decided not show. Had decided that there was no way he could spin his situation in a way that would convince he to help him. But then I saw him in the distance. It was hard to make out with the fog and the setting sun, but there he was, coming my way. I felt a wash of relief until I noticed him stop. Then I realized how tall he looked. How quiet it was there. How impossibly dead everything was. I don’t remember grabbing it, but I know my knife made its way to my hand – I didn’t even try to hide the blade.

I shouted at him. Why was he playing this game? The two of us needed to talk – and then suddenly he was, instead of a hundred feet away, fifty. I got no response other than that. I took a step back only to be matched by him taking a step forward. Then I saw the tie. Bright and red, obnoxious and enthralling. Kal doesn’t wear ties. He doesn't even own a tie. There was no way this fairy tale could be true. It had to be Kal, a friend of his, something, fucking with me. I shouted again. The light fog cleared around it and I got a clear look at that... thing. It had no face, but I could feel a terrible wave of heaviness coming from its stare; something like anger. It began moving closer – but it wasn’t walking. I felt as though I were watching a low budget clay-mation: it moved in short jumps forward,its absent eyes tearing through me.

I took another step back and fell, the rush of fear that followed punctuated by a hard landing. After that, everything seemed to speed up. And the thing was moving normally now – or as normally as it can do anything being what it is. Consumed with horror as I was, every nerve stretched to breaking and every muscle screaming to move, I couldn’t take my eyes from it as it came ever closer. Being at a loss of anything else to do, I slipped into meditation. Deep breathing first – and I could close my eyes. With that thing out of sight, I could direct my thoughts toward working as good a simple cleansing as I could. At this point, I was glad I had the dagger in my hand as a focus for will. I aimed only to enclose the area immediately around me, but it was sufficient. After moments that lasted agonizing eons, I felt my body come back under my control. I sprang to my feet, turned and ran back to my car, refusing to look back. As I turned the ignition, the fog began to melt away in my peripheral. I risked a glance back at where I had been frozen and saw a wisp of that haunting red color roll away as if on a wind. The sound of the world came back to me then. Kal still wasn’t there. We need to meet now more than ever. I know that really happened but... Fucking hell Kal, what did just happen?

-Michenab

Previous/Next

Oneiros

We went back, Damien and I, back to the strange section of forest. Meeting him took some time; I had to navigate back to a familiar location for both us and then lead him to the school. Considering my… newness to this process we had to return to his parent’s house several times before I successfully got him there.

When we finally arrived I realized something was different. While the trees still writhed and twisted, and the blackened landscape warped to impossible shapes there was a sort of heaviness it hadn’t possessed when I’d first been there. I didn’t think much of it though, the Astral Plane is a strange place filled with all manner of foreign sensations. Damien led me through the thorny walls that changed constantly until we appeared at the source of the oddness. Or at least what I assume was the source.

Beyond our obstructions stood a sort of tear. It wasn’t physical or even explicitly visible, but on approach I felt something… it was sudden, a shifting downwards. The sensation was like that of an unexpected drop, and then an increase in the gravity that already affected this place. And moving closer I started to see another place overlaid onto the Astral world… a place of color over this shadowed land.

Damien pushed me through the rift. It wasn’t a physical push but a mental one… spiritual maybe, I’m not sure, but I know that through the other side I was granted the view of a snow covered landscape and orchid splintered skies. Massive trees stood before me, charcoal and crystalline silver, their long branches billowed down to the ground like arms stretched complete with gaping hands. A path cut between these great monoliths, illuminated by floating spheres of grey light, and branching off into several others. I stood at the boundary for some time, both in wonder of this world and in wait of Damien’s arrival. Damien never came through though; something had gone wrong and he never appeared into this world with me.

I pressed on without him. The main path through Oneiros lengthened with every my step forward forcing me onto one of the forest’s unlit backpaths. The forest grew malicious in darkness. Suddenly trees clustered, forcing me from the trail and roots sprang forth from the snow covered earth, grasping my ankles and bring me to the ground. But I continued through numerous falls and an ever increasing weight on my body. I pushed aside patches of nail-like thorns and climbed through icy brooks until I found the path’s grey light again.

Through the wood I returned back to the main path, and I stared in awe of what I saw before me. One great giant monstrous tree that stood higher than I could even conceive… if not for the vast canopy of leaves and branches over head I’d have not thought it ever stopped. And springing forth from this… this Yggdrasil’s roots rose seven more towers of bark. Each of these spires could easily contain several of the smaller trees within their scorched walls.

I ran towards these monumental structures, and as I approached it became clear that climbing round their trunks were scaffolds to scattered branches, each of which hung lighted bodies. The tiny figures swung in empty wind, suspended by black nooses. I stared up, sick with emotion: hatred, shock, and desperation. The grey orbs climbed the trees as well, and I raced up the uneven steps to the tree’s first gallow.

The children didn’t hang from a noose, rather a slim and tendril vine. It wrapped all about their frame holding them to the tree. I traversed the branches pulling the small bodies up one by one, looking upon their tiny faces. They looked so sad. Their eyes stood open, but just barely with a sleepy stare, they seemed not to understand where they were or even my presence. I pulled them all up and continued to another branch, and another and another and another, halting every child’s hanging. I was searching for the boy of course and preparing the rest, far more than I knew I could handle, to be released on my way back down. Twelve branches high I found him, we were then high above the ground, I pulled him up like all the others and then pulled gently on the vine strung around him.

Behind me something shone. I turned in surprise and was blinded by a great white light; my mind filled with a sense of panic and turned back to the boy’s enwrapped body now violently struggling to undo his bindings. With some luck I managed to pull the black vine from him and lifted him up, we started our run down the scaffolds, me leading his obedient shell. At the bottom branch it appeared. The Slenderman. It charged toward me, radiating… something, it wasn’t anger but something so much rawer, the first physical sensation I’d felt since entering this place. I fucking ran, dragged that boy with me and ran as fast as possible. It’s aura though, it brought the full wrath of gravity on me. Like trying to run in knee deep water I simply couldn’t move fast enough… and then I felt a jerk and heard noise for the first time.

A scream. The boy’s scream. It pierced the whole world.

The beautiful pink sky cracked at his shriek, and the color momentarily vanished leaving me in utter darkness lessened only by the distant orbs. I looked back… and through the boy poked an ebon lance. It parted into two black arms and ripped him into two. There was no gore, no blood, no body even; he just let out a final primal cry and evaporated into a flurry of snow. I jerked away and ran towards the lightened path… but then… no. I turned around and dashed to the closest tree. I came in here to save the boy and as a result caused his end but I refused to leave empty handed. I’d decided in that second that I’d save someone… or I wouldn’t leave.

Dashing up the stairway of my second tree I caught sight of the light that had blinded me before. On each trunk had spawned a thousand shining eyes, each silver and sideways, all of various size. I climbed the trunk to the first branch, chased by the Slenderman all the way. I pulled up the first body I found, stamping on her wrapping, and grabbed her in both arms. I turned and he blocked my escape. He left me only one choice.

I leapt. I jumped from that high up branch, hoping… praying that we’d survive. We shouldn’t have, it was much too high, at least sixty feet above the ground… and maybe that’s why we did. In dreams people rarely die, usually the impact or shock will awaken them. Even still my last act in that world was to wrap my body around hers for fear that I was wrong… to shield her sleeping body from the fall.

I woke up, eyes fuzzy but I felt the girl in my arms… and then, then somebody came over and dragged her away. I stood up and tried to tackle them but they moved out of my path, so I ran to the door bolting it and blocking their escape. They ran into Henry’s room and locked the door. I slammed into it trying to knock it down, screaming bloody fucking murder and threatening to kill whoever the fuck it was in there. And then I heard the window open. I heard the clanging of bodies out on the fire escape. I ran out to balcony armed with a vase… the closest thing of any weight I could find. By then though my eyes had cleared and I realized it was Henry escaping with the girl… that he was trying to save her from me…

I dropped the vase letting it shatter on the hardwood and just fell to the floor. I won’t lie; I spent about ten minutes there on the floor weeping. Crying that my friend felt a need to save the girl from me, that she was out there now where he could get her again despite all my efforts, that despite everything I’d still failed, that the boy got ripped to shreds and now I couldn’t even properly protect the one I’d saved in his place.

And then. Then realization struck. Henry was out there with that girl and it wasn’t going to stand for what I’d done. That Henry was in danger now as well. I tried to call him but got no response so I put up that other post of mine, the one pleading him to stay off the streets and to let me explain. I can only hope now that he listens.

Previous/Next

Just What the Hell?

What the hell happened to coming home from a night out with friends to find a mess of groceries or your roommate hiding from myths? Today I found Kal passed out on the floor in the dark with the girl he’s been wracked with guilt over sitting next to him. What the fuck? Why the hell would Kal take her? Where has he been keeping her? I didn’t wake him to ask. I just grabbed my laptop from my room and went for the girl to get her out of there. And then Kal woke up.

I froze a moment before trying to get the girl out the front door. Kal came to his senses faster as he saw me and the girl. He immediately dashed toward the door, blocking me from there. I heard him growl and went back to my room, towing the girl along – there’s a fire escape outside of my window. I think Kal had forgotten about that because he didn’t move for just long enough for me to get the girl into the room. As soon as I shut the door though, I heard the pounding of his feet as he ran. I turned the lock, hands shaking and sweating so much that I could barely do it. As Kal began to rattle the doorknob, I shoved my laptop into a backpack along with my dagger and chargers for my computer and phone. After zipping it up, I hurried to the window and fumbled with the locks as Kal turned to ramming the door with what sounded like his body. The girl just stood there the whole time, looking at her feet.

I finally got the window open and called to the girl to come to me. No response. I went to her and raised her eyes to mine; they looked straight ahead, dilated and seeing nothing. Taking her hand, I led the girl through the window. I shut it as best I could from the outside, and then began the tricky task of getting a nonresponsive child down a fire escape. Somehow it worked, and I got her to my car – then sped all the way to Ronnie’s. On the way, I noticed an odd mark on her hand: an X superimposed on top of an O. I've seen it before I think, but I have no idea what it is. I’ve convinced Ronnie not to call the cops. For now. I want to talk to Kal myself first. He can’t have done this. But then what else could it be?

-Michenab

Previous/Next

Henry. Please. Things aren't how they look.

Henry. Please listen, I've called you a dozen times and I just keep getting an out of service message. 

I need you to read this. I can guess what you're thinking right now but you're wrong. I really need to talk to you but more than that I need you to keep that girl safe. You have to go somewhere away from people, everybody. 

If anyone you don't know approaches you I need you to run. If you see a tall man... well then you definitely have to run. 

Please Henry, get in contact with me, this is important. After we talk if you want to call the police or whoever else that's fine, but for the time being you need to keep that girl safe.

Be careful, and please listen me. We've lived together for two years. Please give me the benefit of the doubt.

Just this once. It's important.
~Kal

Previous/Next

The Astral Plane

That's what Damien came up with. The fucking Astral Plane. Yeah the place of Spirit Projection and Out of body Experiences. He said that it's how the Slenderman moves about, that he cuts through... or maybe exists in this normally inaccessible place. But he said that if I get in I may be able to rescue that kid, that if I should find it's lair or whatever, that I can pull the boy back into reality. He gave me various instructional papers, and some mp3 that's supposed to help unlock the required mental states or something. Really my focus was more on making it work than understanding how it works, I'm not going to pretend to understand the metaphysics or whatever of it...

Well, I got in… surprisingly. From the stuff Damien had me read I didn’t expect to. It said that people generally needed to regularly attempt astral projection to reliably do it. That it required concentration and relaxation and just various other states of mind I no longer possess…

Sorry. This is story time, not time for me to lament the loss of my peace of mind.
I’ve probably been grieving for it for too long now anyhow.

Leaving your body is a very very strange experience, you’ve got to… got to just let everything go. It’s sort of like letting yourself slip into sleep but… but remaining conscious throughout the process. There are these strange sensations that try to distract you, um the vibrations are probably clearest of them. The whole world starts to kind of shake slightly and it feels like this shaking is coming from inside you. Your limbs fall asleep and you get that pins and needles feeling, except there’s no pain from putting pressure on or moving them. And then you just pull out and everything’s dark. I mean completely devoid of light. If it weren’t for all the other strange things I’ve seen today I’d probably have fled back inside. But after that glamour dropped earlier… blackness or blindness or whatever it was… well it was welcome.

Instead of moving back within which felt so safe I forced myself away from my origin, and doing so cleared my vision somewhat. I still couldn’t see well or… or maybe the world just lacked detail, I don’t know. I didn’t really know what to expect; I don’t know what on my trip was normal. But everything was hazy… sort of like when you first wake up and your eyes refuse to focus but at the same time it wasn’t like that at all. I’m sorry I’m doing a downright shitty job describing this… it’s, it’s just really really not an easy place to describe. I’m trying to tell you how a world feels when you lack the facilities needed for feeling you know?

Anyhow. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Slenderman I suppose, or maybe just a place that felt different from everything else. Some place ominous maybe or just more peculiar than anything else here. Thing is though that everything in this place felt different. There were areas where color flushed out and others supersaturated with it and really I couldn’t even figure out where I was. Geometry was weird in there, warped… I could float down Colfax for a block and end up 4 miles in the other direction. Damien had said this was normal, that space and time don’t work the same way there, that they don’t seemingly work consistently there and that movement is more will based than physically based.

So… I gave that a try. I figured I’d try to head back to the school where I first met it. That maybe its lair or whatever would be back behind the school… I mean just because that’s where Sara had seen him, and that’s where I’d met him and well I didn’t have any better a place to look. I zoomed, flying with focus and appeared high above Forest Ridge. There were shadows below, bounding and hopping in curious ways… they were people but they seemed displaced from my perception, bouncing and evaporating from my sight. And past it all, inside those trees the world turned all black. I floated over and was pulled down, gravity slowly reasserted itself regardless of my will. The trees twisted and bent, wrapping among each other and blocking my path.  Briars sprang from nothing forming great walls and shapes that shouldn’t be possible. And the colors… I said that things went monochrome and that’s true, but beneath the black there was still color shining simultaneously to nothing at all. Deep greens and purple and burgundy, sky blue, random lines and highlights of these colors touched every unfathomable object, it was so unlike everything I’d seen.

And then... then I was yanked back. Out from the bizarre forest behind the school, back into my apartment. Henry had come back and was shaking me out of it and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I fell back into reality and looked up to him, my eyes still fogged from the Astral world. I fucking screamed at him. I pushed him off and tried to go back into it but for whatever reason he wouldn't relent; maybe he's just grown tired of my shit or maybe he's still mad about the other night. I don't know... but he right pissed me off, he fucked things up, he pulled me out when I'd found... something. Whatever. I'm gonna see if Damien is still up.  I need to find out what the fuck was up with that forest.

~Kal.

Previous/Next

It's time for a change.

I’ve got Damien working on something for me, a way to get that boy back. It involves shit that I don’t understand or even explicitly believe in, but… but I cannot let things end this way.

I failed him. With every fucking blink of my eyes I see him… I see his desperation and fear and submission. And I know that if I… if I hadn’t submitted myself I could have done something, anything. I’m haunted by thought that that suited fuck took him… that he took him just to show off to me… for no reason other than my obedience to his fucking call, that that child might still be sleeping safely in his bed if it weren’t for my existance.

I’m not one foreign to failure; in fact it’s been a constant companion to me. I’m a shitty student, I’m crap in social situations, I put things off until their too late and I’ve always given up when things get tough… but this… I have never fucked up like this. There’s no fucking forgiving it. None.

I have Damien finding me information on entering the Astral Plane, when he read about the kid, and all that other shit, some light bulb popped on in his head and he made this connection. He’s finding me sources and instructions and all this other bulls… all these other things that I’m not familiar with. And I’m going to fix this. I am going to rescue that kid. Nothing else is fucking acceptable.

Previous/Next

It happened right in front of me

 My memories of the day are all but gone.

After that thing with the disturbing dream this morning I went and dug through my dresser for uh… other clothes. I took another shower just because they’re soothing and then watched old sitcoms until I went to the school.

Well… well I assume I went to the school. I don’t really remember much of the day, I’m pretty sure I got there though. It feels like I did… I'm not totally certain though, that may just be bits of another dream. I do remember some things though. I…I remember waiting for a bus. I was sitting on one of those bus stop benches and it was… it was really foggy. Like really foggy, I remember being concerned that the bus wouldn’t stop because the fog was too dense and the driver wouldn’t see me. But then from the fog he came, it sorta parted for him and he came up to me…something he’s never done before. For whatever reason he never approaches me on the street, just watches from afar. But that’s not important right now. He came up to and this… this wave of comfort washed over me. It was like… like this was where I supposed to be. Strangest feeling I’ve ever felt.

He pointed. Stretched his long arm out and pointed into the haze across the street. And I looked up over there and then back to him in curiosity, but when I looked back he was gone. So I just continued to sit there for what felt like a couple hours. The bus never came though, and so eventually I stood up and walked over and found a backstreet among the fog he’d pointed to.  And with each step down the alley that belonging feeling grew stronger until I could see a long silhouette. Approaching he pointed again down another alley and vanished when I looked away. In a daze I followed his instructions again and again and again until eventually he didn’t even need to point for me to know where he wanted me. He’d just vanish and… and I’d start walking in the direction of that feeling.

It must have continued for just hours because when we finally stopped it was dark out… like really very dark… it must have been at least 8PM then. When we did stop though he vanished once more and this time I felt no pull in any direction, so I stood there and… and searched blindly through his miasma that seemed to envelope the whole of the city. I couldn’t find anything in that final alley so I did the next seemingly reasonable thing; I started looking in ground level windows. And… and I found him, he was inside this building, in a dimly lit room… just sort of hovering, and for a moment I just couldn’t even begin to conceive what he was doing.

I stared in that window completely puzzled until I realized just what sort of room he was in. The walls were painted light blue and inside I could see posters of various sports stars, though in my daze I failed to see any importance in their names not that I'm a fan anyhow. There was a toy chest and a night light which was the source of the room’s dim light. It was a child’s bedroom. Craning my neck it became clear that the object he was hovering over was a low set bed, and in it was a little boy. The nightlight flickered and then, yet again, he had disappeared. And he had taken the child with him. But I could still his presence, and that intoxicatingly strange feeling. I turned and saw the two of them standing before me. The little boy was dressed in blue plaid pajamas and dug into Slenderman’s body, still sleeping in his grasp. Slenderman wrapped that child in his long arms in a way that I can only describe as lovingly.

And then he unwrapped one arm from the little boy and extended it out to me. His hand was as black as the rest of him… it extended from his arm without hem or seem, just an outcropping of his long sleeves. I felt my arm rise instinctively and reach out for him, but before our hands touched the illusion fell. I looked up from his twisted claws and back to the little boy. The monster's hold over him was no longer that of protection but something much more sinister, his other arm down by his side, the child was wrapped in black tendrils. They covered a great majority of his tiny body, holding closed his mouth and pulling him tight against the larger phantom which he stood infront of. That poor boys eyes blinked open for just the tiniest moment, they held terror that even through all this I had never known, a quiet hopeless pleading and the knowledge it would never be answered. I'd seen this look before... it was the same one that Sara had stared upon me with in those early nightmares, and the feeling from them was so much rawer in life. I yanked my arm back. Back from Slenderman and his grasp, back from the broken  child and... and I reeled. I inched away and moved backwards… or maybe he did it starts to get fuzzy again here. The… the whole world started to lose color, the Slenderfog engulfed me again and broke my vision of them both. Something in me welled, I... I felt anger, just terrible anger... it's... it's not an emotion I'm all that familiar with, and I... I just charged into that fog completely blind. But then all the feelings, all the fog, they vanished… and the color slowly washed back into existence. I stood there stunned and I couldn’t help but think that… that I had just witnessed something that human beings weren’t ever supposed to.  I had to sit for a moment and catch my breath, not sure if any of what I just saw, any of what I just experienced was even real.

It was. I got up from the stained alley after a moment or two and made back toward the window. The boy was still missing and this realization led me to a state of panic. I immediately thought, though I don’t know why, that I’d be blamed and so I fled. I... I ran about eighteen blocks before the feeling subsided, and it was at that point that I truly realized what just happened. I had been there. I experienced that monster steal a child from its very home, right from under the noses of the kid’s poor parents. And I let it fucking… fucking infect my mind… I had felt envy for that child in the monster’s embrace. And then, then when I should have done something to inform the parents I fled.

I turned back and tried to find the building I’d followed him to. In my head the whole way I struggled with the words I’d say to the parents when I got there, but in the end it didn’t matter. I couldn’t find the place… I’d only run so far, and I’m sure I'd ran a straight line, but attempting to retrace my steps left me completely lost. Nothing was familiar at all; it was almost as if I’d been in an entirely different city for the kidnapping. But I kept searching, I searched for at least two hours but in all that time I found nothing at all to lead me back to the boy’s dimly lit room. I eventually gave up and caught a bus… turns out that somehow in all my efforts to get back I ended up no more than four blocks from my own apartment.

~Kal

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I’ve had another dream, not one like any of the others… this one, while jarring couldn’t be called a nightmare, neither did it have the same serene feeling I’ve grown so accustomed to in these most recent days. It was so entirely different from anything else I’ve experienced since all this started, and it left my bed soaked with sweat.

While it felt so incredibly real at the time, the apartment in my dream was just a skeleton of itself; I can recall its images strongly… much more so then I regularly am able. The hallway to the bathroom was a sheer blackness broken only by the thin white beams that gave it shape… it existed as contrast and wove twisted and shoddy past the horizon of my vision. I followed that hall fully deceived, believing that I was awake and as such went about my way preparing for my first journey back to school after the break. I walked this pathway on to the bathroom and climbed into the shower, itself a mass of shining tangled pipes standing free against the emptiness of my subconscious world. When finished I pulled back the curtain and walked clothed out from the room where I found the geography had changed. Out the missing doorway and across the hall stood another bathroom, and striding from it another man, a mirror of myself.  

The two of us walked curiously toward each other until it became apparent who we each were… the answer to that very simply being me. We wore the same set of clothes and over them my favorite coat, had the same unruly hair, stood of equal height and stance, but there were differences. Most prominently the mask.

On his face a small purple mask sat, the kind people wear for Mardi Gras or other festive occasions. Just a little cheap plastic mask, other things too. He bore a slight beard opposed to my clean shaven face, and his clothing, though matching mine, was caked with dried mud and all manner of stains… and most finally he bore a smile I have never worn. This smile was the kind one get’s from another’s suffering, sharp and harsh and mad. He straightened, no longer playing my shadow and shot me that terrible smile of broken lips and yellowed teeth.

I stepped backwards frightened by this reflection, but it moved my way too, getting inches from my face and piercing through me with my own eyes colored cruel. And then he laughed, what a terrible laugh… it echoed all across that false existence. It sounded of such devilish glee, like he was so delighted to experience  me cowering before him… like there was nothing in the world that I could ever do. And then… then with me reeling from his laughter, from my own laughter bouncing through the void, he turned his face downwards and pulled from it the tiny purple mask. When our faces meet again his was blank. Gone were my piercing eyes and crooked smile, gone was the unshaved hair from my chin. All that remained was an all too familiar lack of face sitting on my shoulders and still echoing that cruel laugh deep into my soul.

I woke up screaming and damp from the sweat that soaked my bed. I climbed into the shower and rinsed it off, went back to my room to get dressed and deal with my sheets. On the clothes I’d laid out for today was a mask. My mask. I’d gotten it over a year ago when my dad had taken me skiing at the Paralympics which his company helped sponsor. The mask, just as is was in the dream, was small and purple… a cheap Mardi Gras mask bought for $20 as a fundraiser that nearly won me a season’s pass to Vail.

I’d thrown it in a closet and forgotten about it long ago. Beneath it lay the same clothes I’d worn in the dream…  

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I can't believe this. Kal really had been seeming better. I mean, yeah, he still thought this Slender thing was coming after him and the weird shit with the groceris, but that was manageable. He wasn't completely flipping his shit about it anymore at least. And it seemed he had moved past some of his guilt about the girl too. I really thought he was making progress. But. I came home tonight after a date with Ronnie. We'd been having a good time, I hadn't seen Kal all day so I assumed he wouldn't be home, so I brought her back. Ronnie and I were, well, let's say we were in a good mood - ready to get things done, if you understand me. I open the door, and there's Kal in the main room. It wouldn't have been odd (just inconvenient) except that he had on some weird music really loud and he was kind of just swaying in front of a window, looking out at something. I went to see what it could be, but when he noticed Ronnie and I were there, he freaked out and started screaming at us to get out, and trying to force us out of the apartment. Eventually, I just turned and walked Ronnie out of the place. This isn't the first time Ronnie has met Kal and she knows that he's been going through a hard time, but I think this experience scared her more than a little. She offered very quickly to take me back to her place. I accepted, even though I knew the mood was killed. I'm writing from her place now - she's already gone to sleep. I'll be back home tomorrow morning.

-Michenab

Kal: we need to talk again. This has gone too far.

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It's just wrong.

I don’t like this… it’s not right; this isn’t how it should be. I shouldn't want to go out there. Not when he’s out there. But I do… there’s this urge, this pull to see just what it seems to want to show me. He’s been coming to me in my dreams, like not appearing in them as a force like before, but somehow intruding. They’ve been serene, not nightmares just this strange place… a forest maybe… it’s hard to remember really, it’s very much a dream world, there's that incoherancy to it all. He isn’t an antagonist in the dreams though, not a frightening set piece either… it’s more of a person, an actual man of shadow. Is this why others call it "him" and "he" and their affectionate little nicknames? Does it come to them in dreams too; does it try to introduce itself as a man rather than a monster?

I’m sorry. I’m getting off topic.

Anyhow, there he is off in some place I cannot quite see… he… he stands there invitingly, like he wants me to come into the shadows with him. It’s been like this since he broke into… well appeared in the apartment. It’s actually pretty funny thinking of the big bad Slenderman kicking down the door or jimmying to the lock. It’s nice to have something to laugh about actually. But so I’ve been looking out to him when the static blares up and the voices from my laptop distort… and of course there he is. Strange thing is though, when I look out and I see him it’s no longer so intimidating… instead he’s in that same inviting stance. It’s like he wants me to come out and play….

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I don't have very many moments that seriously force me into a double-take, but this afternoon was certainly one of them. I stayed the night at Ronnie's - my phone had died while I was at her place but I saw Kal's post on her computer - and got home not too long ago. You know what I walked into? Grocery's thrown all across the apartment, outside on the balcony, on the ground below it, chairs knocked over, things unplugged and out of place... And worst of all, a big puddle of curdling milk sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. Kal wasn't home, but I guess he went shopping sometime yesterday before all this happened. Whatever went down must have been pretty soon after he got back from the store because there are bags and shit strewn about with everything else. At first I thought it might've have been a robbery or something, especially since Kal isn't here and so I was worried. Until I realized nothing had been taken, just that all this damned food had been thrown everywhere! I'm still worried though. I haven't been able to get hold of Kal. Hopefully I can pretty soon.

Fuck. I had just come over here to get my phone charger, then I was going to head back to Ronnie's but I guess the next few hours will be spent cleaining this mess. Good gods that milk smells nasty. Kal better be in someone's trunk or something for all this.

-Michenab

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Goddammit. Pick up your phone.

Henry.

Where’ve you been man? I’ve tried calling like 4 times already, sent probably a dozen texts too. Well it seems this is my last resort then I guess… maybe you’ll get on here and check site stats or something.

Anyhow I really need you to not come home tonight, stay out with that ladyfriend of yours… I’m sure you’d love an excuse to spend the night with her anyways. Seriously though, I need the place to myself tonight. I’m going to be preoccupied you know... and I’m sure you don’t wanna have to deal with it.  So yeah, hopefully you see this or get one/all of my various messages to you.

Best Luck.

~Kal

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Checking in.

Hey. It’s been a while. Umm week, week and a half maybe. I uh just wanted to stop in on the blog and apologize for not keeping our couple of followers in the loop with what all is going on. Umm, I’ve been busy, been reading blogs and catching videos but I’ve mainly refocused my attention on my work for the school.

My advisor-type person called me up a week back and basically let me know that the school was trying to get rid of me. Said they were concerned with my productivity and my increasingly odd behavior (things like bringing in my personal board games to try to keep kids off the playground, uh my jumpiness and generally antisocial behavior). I calmly explained to him that between the whole thing with the missing girl and some ridiculous fictional family issues that I was having trouble concentrating and well just really not sleeping, that it was a wonder I could even get up in the mornings. I told him that I was aware of these issues though and had taken steps to correct it all. Said that I’d gone to see a doctor and gotten myself proscribed some sleeping and anti-anxiety medications and that I should according to my doctor be operating at a manageable level again in the coming weeks. Then I went in and told the same thing to the school administrators who in all likelihood were trying to boot my crazy ass out of their establishment and let them know that I’d be making up all the work I’d slacked off on during my uh… episodes. 

Now all of this is lies, well I mean what I told them was lies, but I did get my parents to send up a couple mostly full bottles of Focilin from back in Middle and High School when they had me on and off ADD medications all the time. I’ve started taking them daily despite my severe dislike of medications, they’ve um… enabled me to sit down and focus on things that are far less important than this impending danger, to obsess over trivial things really and its done wonders for my paranoia. I mean I still know it’s out there, the Slenderman thing, and it still frightens me but these feelings really only start to come up when I’m not occupied with something. Luckily I’ve got so much fucking work to catch up on from all those weeks where my mind was out in the woods rather than in the classroom that I should be able to stay busy for some time. 

As for the actual, you know… I’ve decided that I’m pretty blessed. This thing seems content just watching me for now, and from what I’ve read, well I’m pretty lucky if that’s all its doing. If it wants to sit outside and follow me around as I go from the apartment to school, back to the apartment, and occasionally to the store to pick up something edible since Henry’s started stocking the place with all this weird vegan shit now… well that’s perfectly fine. Let it. I’ll know when it’s there; I’ve got music playing all the time now. I’ve had to remove a few bands I like from my playlists, Ordo Rosarius, Sopor Aeternus , Emile Autumn, but it’s a price worth paying to avoid false feedback. It comes and goes but it never seems to act, and for that I’m really blessed. 

~Kal 

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Despite Kal's ever-present struggle with the kidnapping, my life is going pretty well. We haven't "officially" been together for very long, but Ronnie and I have been close for a while and we're only growing closer. Sure, it may still be the honey moon phase or whatever, but does anyone ever think about that while actually in the relationship? Anyone who actually hopes for good outcomes to relationships anyway. Yesterday we went and saw that new Johnny Depp movie. It was alright, but apparently the whole movie was actually acted out live-action to get the character models to move how they do. I don't know about anyone else, but I think it would be way more interesting to see the human actors moving dramatically like that. Besides, talking animals are just creepy when you think about it too much. Imagine someone living on a farm, surrounded by animals, and one morning they wake up to one of their cows sitting at the breakfast table eating a bowl of cereal with soy milk and reading the paper. Weird stuff.

Anyhow. Tonight Ronnie and I are going out to dinner. I haven't decided where yet, but definitely somewhere warm and where they have one of those airlock type foyers so that everytime the door opens the freezing air isn't let directly into the restaurant. Usually those places are a little more money than others, but I'd rather be a poor man with a cushiony chair and a back to lean on than rich with a cold, hard steel stool with sharp edges.

-Michenab

Also, Kal, don't be too hard on yourself... I'm sorry about some of the things I've been saying. I do think you need help to work past the loss of that girl, but I don't think you've just completely lost your mind. Arkady on the other hand... Anyhow. I'll let up on the "crazy" rhetoric. Maybe we can try to hang out again.

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My Insanity

You know, I read all of Henry's posts. I'll skip over his poetry from time to time because I haven't the head for it but I do read his posts. 

 He must see me as a psychopath, all locked up in my room and hiding away, leaving only to go to work or grab something from the store. I can see the sorry way he looks at me. You know its depressing. I don't know many people around here, he really is one my best friends these days, we don't hang out anymore. No shitty horror flicks, no video games, no random chats. Hank and I used to do shit, now he'll shy away from me. It's like he's afraid he'll catch my insanity. 

 I think he's right to avoid me though. I mean look at Damien: sure it's after him because of his stupid fucking summoning, but all the same... Well I just wanted to let him know there are no hard feelings about this distance between us. It's really probably for the better, I mean I've got Damien and this Arkady fellow of his, along with a good chunk of the internet drowning in madness with me... I don't want to get Henry involved in this shit too.

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New Challengers

Old Time Quest

Far away from cold adventures,

The old-man guide forgets his dentures

And ventures into the forest alone,

Leaving the heroes guarding his home.

As he wanders through the snowy leaves,

The old man slowly sinks and grieves

And thinks about what he has lost,

What he has done and at what cost.

Mem’ries of old family,

Long gone in manifest

But still existing in his chest,

Haunt his spirit as he walks

And thoughts of past talks

With young tots about sparks and hawks

Flit through his mind.

He sees the ending coming

As his trail-end comes to sight.

So, in deep night, without fright,

The old man sits upon a bench,

Lays himself so his back won’t wrench,

And stares up at the sky,

Becoming glassy-eyed,

While the heroes back home

Expect the return of a man in bliss

Who ended with a kiss.

I've always been interested in people. How they act and why they act. That's part of what influenced my decision to go into journalism: so I can record the actions of others and see what they do in different circumstances and states of mind. I've learned that the human mind can be infectious though, and I have a tangible example living in my apartment. I worry about Kal. He's getting worse and now he's dragged his friend Damien into his Slender Man mess, which is fairly impressive given it's been a while since they actually saw each other in person. Then of course there's this "Arkady" fellow who seems to have teamed up with Damien. From what little I've managed to gather so far, Arkady is simply a crazed drug addict using the Slender Man myth to hide the fact that he has a problem and bribe a room out of Damien with his supposedly superior knowledge. I honestly don't know where people like this come from, but I send thanks to every god I seem to have some sort of immunity to insanity after my own plunge into darkness a while ago. Maybe it's like chicken pox. This could come off as mean, but I don't know what else to do to snap Kal out of it. I've tried everything nice that I can think of. I mean, sure, he's my good friend, I'm still going to support him but I won't enable his self-imposed lunacy.

Now I do understand that Kal is torn up about this little girl that's disappeared, but what could he have really done? If the stories I've been following and searching up these last couple months (see: this and this) are any indication, this kidnapping at Kal's school is probably related and all signs point to whoever it is being very good at this. I don't know what else to say to him, but hopefully he can bring himself out of this hole he's dug for himself soon.

-Michenab

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