Inferno-Part Three

     I've been losing time at a terrible pace.  How long has it been since my last update?  When I woke up this morning, I was at the edge of the woods about a mile from my motel.  I think I was sleepwalking, but one can never be too sure.  I haven't seen him in the past couple of weeks.  I haven't seen him, but I can feel him watching me and that is almost worse.  If there's a bee in the room, one wants to see it.  Every flicker in my peripheral vision, every shadow that crosses my window, every sudden noise as the motel rooms settle.  And it is so cold all the time, so very cold.  Whenever I wake up, there are small icicles or frost spiderwebbing across the window panes.  This is California; it's not supposed to...

Happy Valentine's Day

     Some of you may have noticed my absence this past...has it been a week?  I'm not really sure.  It's been surreal; time has been passing as if in a dream.  The rest of the comic will be posted tomorrow and the days following; I have been delayed in drawing them due to my new hectic schedule. 
     When I last posted, I was staying at a motel around Larkspur.  It was a decent place, but the light switches never worked when I tried to use them.  I stayed there a short time only, wanting to stay ahead of my paranatural pursuer.  I didn't get very far.  I started receiving the "gifts" the morning after arriving at the  second motel.  Little bags of gore, dead rats mostly, tied sometimes with the sinew of the unfortunate doner. Each one was gutted completely, no intestines. They would be on the nightstand when I awoke.  No matter where I fled, they would always be there in the morning.  It has been busy moving about, and I do hope you will forgive my silence. 
     There was a special "gift" today, albeit I doubt it had relation to the holiday.  Upon waking, I was relieved to find no trace of a bag in my room.  My mood changed when I opened the blinds.  As it is February, the trees outside had yet to put on the trappings of spring but they were not naked.  The collective intestines of each small animal I had been sent festooned the branches.  It is interesting to note that I have not seen him since my unfortunate departure, the details of which I'll present through the comic.  Suffice it to say that I did a stupid thing, and...I suppose I'm marked now, not that I wasn't before.  But since then, I have had no respite from the oppressive sensation of being watched, especially when I sleep.  The dreams are almost too much to handle.  I don't want to hear her scream any more, nor feel the long-dead grasp of her small hands at my throat.  I've finally refilled my medication.  It's a type of anti-hallucinogen that suppresses my dreams and balances out my serotonin levels to reduce the anxiety that causes the hallucinations.  I'm not pleased with the results.  Everything, wake or sleep, moves at the pace of a rosy fever-dream.  I think I've been loosing time.  I should call my doctor and see what to do about that side effect...
     Today was the day Margot died, ten years ago.  I think that was the occasion for the "gift".  It was her voice on the phone, and I've been getting calls over the hotel lines...
     I think...I think there is something I am not remembering, something buried under a protective layer of ice in my subconscious, something churning just beneath the surface now.  Should I try to remember?  Is that what he wants?  Maybe it's better if I just let it drown in the deluge of years...

     It's funny.  None of the light switches work here, either...

Inferno-Part Two

     I don't know how fast I can crank these out.  I'm in a motel for now, and haven't seen him since yesterday (the day of the subject of these comics), but after what happened, I don't think I can stay here for too long.  I'm already making arrangements to leave.

Inferno-Part One

    
     Today has been quite an adventure.  I only have time to upload the first part, and the motel's scanner cut a bit off the right side.  Ah well, I'm lucky the motel had a scanner at all. 

Hen To Pan

     We now take a break from your regularly scheduled self-central blogging to bring you a song dedication.  This one goes out to The Community at large, with special regards to one Avalesca Farrell-Conquest of London Librarian fame.  One of the things that most impresses me about you guys is how close-knit a community you are.  Everyone goes through their hours of darkness, but everyone else is right there with love and support.  I know I am a newcomer to all of this (I rather feel as if I am butting into someplace I don't belong), but I want to add my own Warm Feelings (tm) to the mix.  Cheesy, I know, but there you go.

Many hearts to you all,
~Ouroboros.
One is the All

Playdate

     0-737-2867 Called again.  I thought I'd blocked the number yesterday, but it still got through.  Checking the numbers against the corresponding letters on my cell phone gave me a chuckle.  But the message is worrying; the little girl's voice almost definitely belongs to Margot.  How is that being achieved?  I'm going to guess an excellent bit of mimicry. 

There is a tone of tense apprehension to this day.  I am waiting for the other shoe to fall.

It Only Makes Me Laugh

Delia’s head was in the refrigerator.  I was going to get a bottle of tea and there it was, staring forlornly up at me from the crisper.  I turned around and caught a glimpse of him at the window.  It was then that the police knocked on my door to interview me.    

You may wonder why I’m not more perturbed by this.  The thing is, aside from the initial shock of things. I’m not really that afraid.  Anxious, yes.  But since the anxiety disorder stopped being a problem (and even during its hayday, on occasion) I’ve always faced stressful situations numbly as a challenge to overcome.  I can freak out after everything’s all over.  Whether ‘over’ consists of escape or death, I don’t know.  Quite frankly, I intend to live a while but I wouldn’t be surprised if I died.  It’s happened to stronger people than me, after all.  Whatever happens, happens.

I closed the door to the fridge and let the cops in.  They weren’t there long.  I had a Tell-Tale Heart moment where I was convinced that the fridge door would magically spring open, or the officers would smell something off, but I managed to not look at it once.  I answered all of their questions, and they left.  As the door shut, one of the officers asked me to “Give us a heads up if you hear anything.”  When they were gone, I collapsed with laughter.  I really don’t know if it was the terrible, unintentional pun, or a form of stress-release, but I’ll take it.  I checked the refrigerator again, and Delia’s head was gone.  Of course.  I expect he might use it to try to incriminate me again, but I’m not going to crystal ball. 

Things do seem to be escalating. I have yet to see a corporeal Hallowed/Proxy.  I’m expecting things to get violent soon.  Call it ‘justified paranoia’.  If that becomes the case, I have a few things hidden away in a varnished wood toolbox.  I’m not banking on their success, but it’s better than nothing.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to put on some Oingo Boingo and get my homework done.

Dial 0 for Operator

     Somebody left this message on my cell phone.  The number was 0-737-2867. 

     I had a nightmare last night.  I was in the small patch of trees in the middle of the fields outside my childhood home.  The trees were a lot closer together, and didn't seem to end no matter how far I walked.  As I tried to find my way out, I began to hear children giggling.  I walked faster.  From all around, snapping twigs, that incessant giggling, and the sound of something dragging through the bracken.  I ran.  I did not get far; I was soon surrounded by high deadfalls.  And they all came from between the trees.
     When I was growing up, occasionally there were stories of some of the local children dying.  There were even a few disappearances.  In my dream, I saw what became of them.  Maddie was there, her head split open all the way to her right eye.  Part of her cheek was missing, exposing the grim mirth of her mandible.  She disappeared back in the 90s.  It's rumored her abusive father pushed her down the stairs and hid the body somewhere in the fields.  Gage was there, and he was a tiny broken thing; he was hit by an Orinco truck out on a lonely farmland road.
     There were a few others, but the worst was Margot.  Margot was my friend when we were seven.  We had been up in the mountains sledding.  She wandered off into the snow, and I told her not to go but she said he was calling her.  I told her her dad couldn't be calling her, he was back in the car getting the camera, but she went off into the woods and there was a frozen pond hidden in the snow and, oh God, I remember the tiny unobtrusive crack of the ice and oh god we couldn't pull her outandohgodIrememberthescreams.
     And there was poor drowned Margot, back to play.  There she was, her skin pale as a dead fish, her arms black to the elbows, body swollen almost beyond recognition.  Her eyes were the worst, swelled and bruised, but they were still her eyes and they smiled out at me like they used to whenever I came to visit.
     They were all laughing and lurching towards me, arms outstretched, hands hooked into tiny claws in expectation.  I scrambled to overcome a deadfall.  The children climbed too.  At one point I slipped and Margot's icy hand  snatched at my foot.  I recovered and made it over the pile of fallen logs and branches.  There was a frozen lake on the other side.  Before I could react, Margot's long-dead hands encircled my neck in a clammy embrace and we both tumbled headlong into the icy water.  She dragged me down, down into consciousness.  I woke wrapped in my blankets from thrashing, and still I was not warm.
     I believe he's trying to get at me through my subconscious.  Those memories are dead, and sometimes dead is better.  I won't let myself be frightened so easily. 

The police are asking everybody in the dorm about Delia, and it's almost my turn.  I'm planning to run afterwards.

Madoc, are you here? I've been sleepwalking again, my dear.

       This morning, I woke up in the dorm’s basement.  Unlike the sub-basement, it’s furnished with a television, a pool table, and some very comfortable couches.  Guess where I woke up?  My neck is an opera of injured nerves.  I found some weird notes scattered around the table next to me.

 

       The first one says 'NO SLEEP' over and over.  I thought the second was gibberish at first, but after some research I realized it is a copy of one of the nine "perfect" word squares.  The words themselves don't have much to do with the situation (I think), but the capitalization screamed 'code'.  The first two hidden words are then DEATH and DIE.  The last two gave me problems because their letters are out of order.  After some patient anagramming, I figure they read 'NOT SANE'.  ...That, or 'TONES AN'.  But the former makes more sense, you think?  The last one clearly has 'DIE" in capitals, but the format made me suspicious.  After a while, I recognized it as a backwards sentence without spaces.  'He is coming soon and your blood will flood the earth' is what it says.  When I took those pictures I was very cold all of a sudden, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  I haven't seen the lean mean tentacle machine since the dry ice bomb incident.  I get the feeling 'seen' is the operative word in that statement. 
      I was hoping the pills would prevent the sleepwalking.  Bitter disappointment.  My roommate apparently saw me leave the dorm around 4 AM, and assumed I was going to the bathroom.  I talked to the security guard at the front desk, too.  I told him I had a sleepwalking problem and wanted to know where I'd gone in the night (I didn't mention anything else, of course) and he let me look over the hall security tapes with him. 

 There is no record of me being in my hall since I came back to the dorm yesterday afternoon.  

The guard thought I was pulling a stupid prank and reprimanded me.  Does anybody know what's happening to me?


     Delia has been officially reported missing.  The police are supposed to come and interview people.  I think it's safe to assume who has her.

     

My Own Worst Enemy

Hypnogogic hallucinations are a bitch.  For those that don’t know, they aren’t really hallucinations in the traditional sense.  Or so my psychiatrist told me back in the day, ha ha.  I’m going to be very up front about some personal issues here, but it’s necessary to inform my current situation. 

When I was in my freshman year of high school, I had to leave traditional school for independent study.  I have an anxiety disorder that mostly has to do with social phobia.  For a time, I had trouble leaving certain rooms and I don’t think I left the house for a few months.  But when it came time for college, I manned up and worked to desensitize myself to the phobia.  The hypnogogic hallucinations are the death-throes of the anxiety disorder.  They happen whenever I am very stressed and have just woken up or am about to fall asleep.  They are generally visual, but are sometimes auditory and “tangible” as well.

As I was returning from the doctor’s today, there was a masked figure of indeterminate gender at the end of my hall.  I didn’t notice it until I had my keys in the door.  When I saw it, it rushed me.  It rushed right through me, and disappeared. 

I am fairly positive that Hallowed/Proxies don’t do that.  They tend to be solid, yes?  So I am going to go out on a limb and say that it was in my mind.  So, it looks as if I have to worry about external and internal mindfuckery.

Joy.

It would probably help if I tried to sleep properly.  Recently, I’ve developed a bit of insomnia.  Can you blame me?  Tomorrow, I will call up my doctor and see if I have any refills left of the antipsychotic.  That is the scariest name for a pill type ever.  With luck, it will suppress the hypnogogic hallucinations.  By the way, I sprained my ankle during the escape from Pencildick.  Not too shabby, considering I probably should have broken it.  Or died.  Can’t forget that.

I haven’t seen Delia since that night at the window.  I hope she’s all right.

Thin Ice

It was a narrow escape.

Class ran late.  It was dark when I got out.  I hadn't planned for that.  Foolish, very foolish.  Now is not the time to make rookie mistakes.  It is a big city, no trees for miles.  People move on the streets as blood struggling through a clogged artery.  Such a setting seemed…safer…to traverse.

I felt it important to be around others instead of sequestering myself in my dorm and planning my eventual departure.  I've been reading the blogs of others stalked by the creature, and believe it might be possible to outrun him.  It's not possible to run forever, but I recognize those around me will be in danger were I to stay.  I don’t know if I somehow involved Delia from next door or if she was already being watched.  It’s still a possibility that I read too much into her demeanor, but I will not allow myself that petty hope. 

There was another reason for leaving the dorm.  On the way to class, I stopped off at the local art supply store, and a place called ABC Ice House.  I purchased a bottle of turpentine, some dry ice, a pair of pliers, and some bottled water from a vending machine.  I had an idea for a possible defense maneuver, see.  As I was paying for my things the oddest sensation overcame me, like pins and needles followed by a wave of chill.  He was at the big glass shop window.  No one else seemed to notice him, but a few seemed uneasy.  The credit card reader malfunctioned, probably his doing, and I had to wait for a tekkie to come and fix it.  While I waited, there was an almost irresistible urge to look back out at him.  I resisted; ‘The Abyss gazes back’ and all that.  I ended up paying in cash, not wanting to stall any longer.  When I looked up next, he was gone. 

I made it safely to school.  A word about my school; it has no formal campus and is comprised of bought buildings and homes around the city.  The class I had today was in the basement of an old office building.  The basement itself is well-furnished, but the sub-basement below it is full of pipes and rust and tetanus.  There wasn't room in one elevator for all of my classmates, so I got on the next elevator heading upwards alone.  The lights flickered, and the elevator began to descend.  Aghast, I pressed the button for my floor again and again.  As expected, the elevator stayed its course.  I didn't quite dare press the Stop button and strand myself between floors. 

The doors opened on the sub-basement.  I pressed the close-door button a few times, but to no avail.  Before me was a corridor perpendicular to the way I was facing.  The walls were stained with water, and a scant few fluorescents intermittently lit the way.  There was a familiar figure down the hall to my right.

He was walking towards me.

The lights were going out the closer he got.

Old trick, Slendy, but effective; my heart was instantly in my throat.  I pressed for the elevator once more, then gathered my courage.  There was a staircase ten feet to my right.  He was about 25 feet away and moving slowly.  I began to walk.  Three feet; As lights shut off, I tried to fight the image of a wave of Dark.  Five feet; all I can make out is his head and hands, the rest camouflage.  Ten feet; he is five feet away and the doorknob slips in my hands.  I make it inside.  I lost my nerve and ran.  He was behind me of course, what is a door to one who can bend space.  A flight of steps, and I can feel him closing the gap.  I am cold.  Fear will do no good here and I channel it into adrenaline.  I reached the door to the basement.  No time to try for the lobby.  For a horrible moment, the knob doesn’t turn.  I imagine his hands inches from my neck.  The knob turns. 

He is outside the door.  Of course.

It is a long moment.  Below, I hear a man whistling as he walks down the corridor I’ve just fled.  It is the loneliest sound I have ever heard.  Slender Man bends over at the waist, head turned to the side at a near 90-degree angle.  Regarding me?  My fear was a low hum, like a telephone wire.  I don’t know why I decided to try what I did next.  Blame it on being cornered.  I backed towards the concrete lip of the stairwell, and jumped over the edge.  My right foot song when I landed on it.  It may be fractured.  As soon as I landed, I got my water bottle and the dry ice and shut the door.  Most of the ice did not make it into the water and I almost lost the cap.  It was a small bottle, so the dry ice bomb readied quickly.  I hadn’t figured on it working; it was a last-ditch survival effort.  My only explanation for its mild success is that I caught him in between dimensions as he teleported.  It exploded as he appeared at the door, and he fell back into the stair room.  I observed his “skin” blacken slightly as he did.  I ran for the elevator.

The man who had been whistling held the door for me.  I collapsed onto the back wall, my poor foot throbbing.  The man—I assume he was maintenance—regarded me skeptically. 

“What’s that noise about?”  he inquired.

“I think a pipe burst,” was the best I could come up with.

Somnabulism

Dreams.  In archaic Freudian terms, they spring up from the Id and pass through the filter of the Ego.  I have often wondered if, at least for certain people, there exists the ability to tap into a Dreamscape; the collective Id of the human race, if you will.  This hypothesis is far-fetched, I know, but bear with my musings.  Suppose the Slender Man can find us through our dreams.  He clearly has some influence over our minds, and I’ve heard tell of people waking up in strange locations.  He seems to feed off of negative emotions, and when are we most susceptible to unbridled feeling if not in our dreams?  I will look into this.

I have started sleepwalking again.  It used to be a problem, coupled with some other sleep-related disorders.  Last night, I dreamed of faces, many faces falling apart at the seams.  It was as if something was punching holes in them and pulling out the stitching; inside the faces were pitchy and corroded and stunk of rotting wood.  According to my roommate, I got out of my bed around 4:40 and stood at the window for a few minutes before going back to sleep.  I do not remember ever waking.

I have not seen him yet today.  I am leaving for school very soon though; the day is young.

At The Window

And I’d almost regretted making this blog, thinking I’d reacted in haste.  I had thought perhaps I’d imagined my encounter because of paranoia.  There are other reasons I’d assume hallucination over reality when dealing with something like this, besides pure skepticism.  They relate to my aforementioned original interest in Slender Man’s mythology, but again I am not going to post about that now.  I will have to eventually.  The goal of this journal is to record my experiences so that, even if I should die, others in my situation might have another piece of the Slender puzzle.  To do that, I am going to have to bring up things about myself and my past that I’d rather lie buried.  Good lord, I sound melodramatic.  I will chalk that up to what I’ve just seen. 

My roommate and I were studying quietly in our dorm when I noticed something flicker by our fourth floor window.  I got up to check.  The DVD I was watching had started to skip, but I thought nothing of it; I was playing it on my old PS2, and it sometimes skips with movies. 

He was outside, in the small alley between my dormitory and the hotel next door.  As it is night and the alley has no street lamps, I could only make out his shape by the rim light illuminating him from the hotel behind him.  That is not a shape one forgets.  I was going to attribute it to a trick of my mind, but my roommate had come to look out of the window as well.  She asked if I knew ‘why that man’s wearing such a weird costume’. 

I think I can rule out hallucinations.

The thing of it is, he wasn’t looking up at us.  From what I could make out, he was pointed towards the room one door down from our room.  I heard them shut the window.  Perhaps I have an ally?  My roommate’s friend, Delia, lives there.  I will go talk to her. 

Delia was strange.  Granted, I’d never the occasion to talk to her outside of a passing greeting here and there, but she did not seem quite right.  Her face was drawn and sullen, her eyes bruised from what I assume to be lack of sleep.  It is too early in the semester for that, unless she has been out partying frequently.  It was the way she spoke that rose my heckles, however.  Slurred and simple, and at one point she repeated herself twice.  Her eyes were so distant then.  This may still have to do with drugs or alcohol, but given recent events her behavior is raising red flags.  I will proceed with caution; from what I read, Slender Man can addle one’s mind.  That or she may be becoming one of the minions I hear about.  I don’t know how I can help her (if I can help her) so I will spend the rest of this night researching.

You may wonder why I don’t go on the run, as I hear many do.  The way I understand it, he is always watching you wherever you go.  If this is the case, running will solve nothing.  That aside, I am not yet autonomous.  I have no money of my own, and I can guarantee my parents will disable my credit card were I to disappear.  The small funds I have would not get me out of the city. So I will be preparing an arsenal of weapons, both traditional and...experimental.  I have no idea if they will work, but it is worth trying, should I need them.  Better to stand and fight, if I am not merely a witness.

Float Up From Dream

It is a world of Coincidence, where nothing can be taken for granted, and nothing is outside the realm of possibility.  The “Laws of Reality” I had until recently believed to govern this world have just undergone a serious blow.  Then again, I’ve never held much stock for perceived law.  That prose is too purple, captain.  Set phasors to ‘minimalist’ and fire when ready.  For this journal to serve the purpose for which I intend it, I’ll need to do away with the poetics and get to the meat of my story. 

Looking back, it probably began last September.  I am wary of citing that incident as the actual Start, considering how very coincidental and hard to believe it is but it is my duty to record it for posterity.  It was the first assignment of the semester and, as I am studying to be an illustrator with a specialization in comic books, I was assigned to draw two pages involving an incident from my day.  One would be hard-pressed to find a duller topic.  I slept on it. 

I dreamed.

 It is important to mention, though some of you may not believe me, that I had never heard of him before early January of this year.  One might argue that I had seen his name floating around the internet-or overheard a story-and remembered it subconsciously.  I do not deny this, but I think I would have remembered him considering my unnatural obsession with all things Horror, and mythology like his is right up my alley.  In any case, back in September I dreamed about being chased through a forest of dead trees by something tall and thin.  I ended up drawing my dream for the class.  While what I came up with lacks all of his hallmark character tags and modus operandi, it does bear certain striking resemblances to his legend.  Also, the Name was the same. 

I forgot about this project, and had a mostly trouble-free semester, despite a run of terrible bad luck.  And then, in early January, a friend of mine shared a link to a video on Youtube.  I was enamored (as I’ve said, I have a thing for horror stories, and this one…it resonated in a way I’ll discuss in another entry).  Not knowing the danger, I began sewing a doll in his likeness.  With every step of the doll I completed, things I mistook for ‘coincidences’ began to increase in frequency.

An oppressive feeling of unease.

Glances caught in my peripheral vision.

Every night at midnight, footsteps by the back door.

One night, I jolted awake at the sound of my bedroom door opening.

And then, the day before yesterday, I saw him.  I was driving through the field near my house, at night.  The radio in my car became a wail of static, and he was there ahead in the road.  I saw him only for a split second before I was passed, but my God, My God, he or it was not human.  Like a thing half-formed, like a mockery of its prey. 

I am not in my hometown now, as I was only home for winter break.  I am in a big city, so maybe there is hope.  In hindsight, how could I have been so stupid?  Is not one of the foremost rules of horror to not go poking one’s nose where one knows danger can be found?  I suppose it doesn’t matter. 

I am being hunted by the Slender Man.

It is happening, whether I brought it upon myself by seeking out information, whether he sought me out through my dream, or whether it was merely

coincidence.