Ronnie

I've been staring at this screen for... almost an hour now. Everything that happened tonight keeps replaying on the backdrop of this blank prompt. At first I was in shock. I didn't know what to do. But it's starting to hit home now. And I don't like the feeling.

I've been avoiding talking too much to Ronnie. I've been nice and sweet as much as Ican, but I've needed to retain some amount of focus on keeping us all alive. I though about explaining that to her, but all I could see was a fight at the end of that tunnel. As it turns out, there was nothing I could do in the first place to stop that fight from coming. Finally fed up with the whole situation, with her distrust of Kal, her want to help the girl and my... unresponsiveness, she picked an argument. It doesn't matter anymore what it was about. I don't care and honestly, I don't remember it very well, except that as I became more and more involved in it, I could feel in the back of my mind a weakening in the presence that I brought around us. Something sharper than the gradual sapping of energy that has been going on since I put it up.

Kal noticed it too. He came into the room to get my attention and when I gave it to him... Well, that's what really set Ronnie off. She began walking around the room, gathering some of her things as she did so, voice raised. I could hear something about the balcony from Kal, but my main focus was on trying to calm Ronnie down. Trying to keep from leaving. To keep her with me. But that was another thing I couldn't stop. Another failure.

At least Kal was able to keep the girl from her. Because when she walked out of the front door... there he was. And I think for the first time Ronnie actually saw him. Saw him and recognized him for the otherness that he is. The rest happened in silence. That dead silence that almost claimed me. I could see her mouth moving, but all I heard was the impossibly slow beat of my pulse in my ears. His presence seemed to dwarf Ronnie, though he didn't seem to actually shift in size - and then without any warning, she was pulled into him. It looked as though she had been pushed from behind, or had jumped. Wrapped in an embrace with far too many arms, she was turned to show her front perfectly to me. The fear etched on her face... the horrible fear that I couldn't keep her away from... It was nothing compared to the sudden emptiness that followed. Her lithe body, tense with so much stress, was not so hard to witness as the ragdoll limpness that came after. One second, there she was, my Ronnie, wrapped in his arms, struggling - and then the next, she was gone.

She isn't mine anymore. She's his now. She was taken from me, and I will never have her back. I can feel it in the soul crushing void that screams for something to fill it and sucks everything into its empty nothingness, only to feel no more satiated than it was at its conception. I can feel it in the energy around me that weakens no matter what I do. I can feel it in my broken will. Thank god for Kal. If he hadn't been there, I may have just charged at him, holding her, and ended us all. Instead, I watched him fade away, the dead eyes of my love staring out at me, while I struggled against Kal's restraint.

I can't do this anymore.

-Michenab

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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

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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

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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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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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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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Romance

And so concludes one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long while. I suppose I should probably introduce some backstory first. There’s a girl, Veronica (but I call her Ronnie), that I’ve known for a while via classes and we've gotten to be pretty good friends. She invited me Thursday night to a party she was going to (she managed to keep her Fridays free of classes and I knew I wasn’t going to be sleeping anyhow, so why not). It looked like she was there to actually have fun. I was simply trying to escape the insanity pit that the apartment had become (more on that in a bit). She was the only one I knew very well, so I spent most of the night with her. And now we’ve been on a date every single day since, and have more planned. And the most amazing thing about all of this: on Saturday, after I got Ronnie home, I actually felt like sleeping. I feel this bears repeating: I was genuinely tired and felt like I could sleep! And it gets better because I actually could sleep. I got a whole nine hours. That hasn't happened in a while, despite my best efforts. I don’t know if it’s because of the new relationship or not but either way, I am not complaining because with sleep has come an end to the obsession with the darkness that surrounded Navidson and Johnny Truant and a window opening to happiness. The endless halls of Infinity that I have been trapped in are dissipating. I feel free.

If only I could say the same for Kal. Last week was… Well, I’m sure you can all see part of it in his posts. There were days though that he didn’t even leave his room. And I’m not sure how to help him (majoring in journalism, not psychology, after all). Maybe if I get him into the sunlight a bit more. But I think we’ll definitely be avoiding trees, for his sake.

-Michenab

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