Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Old Friend

Always good to see familiar faces, isn’t it?

Running to Austin was never intended to be a permanent solution. Running from Slender Man is never a permanent solution, really. But it did achieve its purpose, which was to get me from a horrible situation to a situation that’s only bad. I may still be the prey of a monster, but at least I don’t have Javert’s people surrounding my living space.

Speaking of Javert’s people, I think I should explain the familiar face I mentioned. You’ll never guess who I saw stumbling through the crowds of downtown Austin.
I’ll give you three tries.

Figured it out yet?


Our good friend, Porfiry!
Yes, it seems he’s decided to make the trip up to Austin, just for me! I feel so loved.
I saw him on Congress Avenue, near the capitol. Poor Porfiry wasn’t looking good when I saw him; even worse for wear than when I hit him with a car door. He was wearing the same clothes as when I last saw him, though much dirtier, with a few tears. His hair was a mess, and dark bags were hanging from under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days.
But there was another thing about him, which caught my attention above all else. It was the way he moved. His movements weren’t like what they had been before; they reminded me of the proxy I’d killed by Javert’s house. Like a puppet, being pulled on strings. Porfiry jerked through the crowd, oblivious to the people he bumped aside. And his eyes…. They were completely blank. As though he wasn’t seeing anything around him; eyes like glass.

He didn’t seem to notice me when I saw him. His puppet gait was pulling him to another part of the city, away from me. Where to, I don’t know. But it’s a problem I’ll need to deal with.


On a less threatening tangent, I’ve done an inventory over what supplies I was able to bring with me. It comes down to:

1 Laptop (no charger, so its useable lifetime is limited)
1 Replica Sword
1 Kitchen Knife
1 Paddle (The purpose of it still eludes me)
3 Breakfast Bars
2 Bottles of Water
1 First Aid Kit
1 Set of Lock Picks
$320 Cash
1 Car

The money should last a while, as long as I don’t spend all of it on gas. I’m hoping that by the time I run out, I’ll have found a steady source of food, so I don’t have to starve. Finding a place to sleep would also be nice; I can’t spend every night in the car. It’s causing me all sorts of back pain and cramps. If I keep this up, I’ll be a cripple when I’m older.

Except I actually won’t, because I’ll be dead.

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy

Wanted to post yesterday. Couldn’t. Too much pain.
Once the adrenaline from my escape wore of, the pain really hit in full force. Much of Monday was spent lying in my car, trying to move as little as possible. Couldn’t eat or sleep for the entire day.

It’s gotten better today; I’ve gone from OHGODEVERYINCHOFMYBODYISBURNING to something I can tolerate, albeit after having chugged half a bottle of ibuprofen. Hopefully this means it will eventually go away.

With my newfound ability to move, I looked on the news to see what they say happened at my apartment. Former apartment. The entire complex was burnt down; far, far worse than anything my fireworks could have done. Looking at the pictures, some of the brick walls have been melted, and I’m pretty sure bricks have a pretty damn high melting point. Lots of people were caught asleep in the fire, though there hasn’t been an official report on the number of dead. Police are calling it arson. Which I suppose it technically is.

A final note: I checked my parents’ house. Wanted to see what happened there.
The home was empty of people; no mother or father to be found in it. I should have expected that, really. But I’d been hoping for some kind of closure; even finding their bodies would have been fine. This was just, vanishing, emptiness. The entire home is too quiet, too empty. I’d first thought about spending time more time there, possibly using it as some manner of base camp, but I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather sleep in my car than in that tomb.

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Breaking Out

Fun night.


For the entire night, I had been trying to spend the majority of time awake, having taken short naps through the day so that I could maintain some awareness. Sleeping also provided some relief from the pain; even with me reluctantly taking pain medicine, all I’ve accomplished was to take off some of the edge. But most importantly, I’d been preparing.

At exactly 1:11 AM last night, I heard the front door of my apartment unlock. One man entered, not one of Javert’s officers, but a man in ragged clothes, wearing a cheap white mask. He was holding only a knife; bit of a disappointment for me. I’d been hoping for something more exciting; my plans had been for multiple armed police officers, but if Slendy wanted to start this out easy, I could adapt.

This masked man ran straight towards my room, not bothering to look anywhere else to see if I was hiding. Just where I wanted him to be. Getting behind him wasn’t very difficult. As I’ve said before, the replica sword I own does not have a blade, but that does not prevent it from being used as a club. When I hit the back of his head, I could feel bone cracking underneath. Given how resilient the last proxy I killed was, I wasn’t going to waste time seeing if he was going to get up again, and went straight to knife work. Moving that much hurt; every time I stabbed down, I felt my muscles screaming at me. Every deep breath I had to take, my lungs burned. The pain mixed together with the adrenaline, with the expression of bliss as I felt his blood splatter across my cheek, into something greater, a feeling so amazing I can scarcely describe it. He struggled, but I was stronger. This one died easier than the last.

The instant the body stopped struggling, I felt Slender Man appear. He was in the center to my room, standing over the proxy I had killed, dozens of tentacles branching out from him. Also where I wanted him to be. He was making bold, purposeful strides towards me, tentacles stretching out to touch me. I ran out of my room, and he followed, seeming so confident, so sure that there was no need to teleport to catch me.

When he stood in the doorway, I busted out the fireworks I’ve had lying around for so long. There are many safe things to do with fireworks. Shooting them at a target ten feet in front of you is not one of them.

The moment I had lit the fuses, I ran for the now open front door. I heard, and felt, the explosions behind me as I was just going out. The heat was intense, adding even more to the pain I was feeling. I suffered some burns on the parts of my skin which were exposed; it would have been much worse had I not already been a foot outside when they went off.

Didn’t stop to see if the fireworks had worked, just kept running. Fire erupted from my apartment, and quickly started to spread across the building. The fire was larger than I had planned for; impossibly large. The fireworks on their own should not have been able to cause a fire which spread so quickly across a stone building, almost overtaking me as I ran down the stairs towards the parking lot.

There waited Javert’s police, staring slack jawed at the blaze consuming the building. To them, I looked like just a black silhouette against the fire. It also helped that their attention was diverted; whatever they had expected, explosions and fires had not been amongst them. It wasn’t until I running past them that I heard a shout of recognition, and by then I had already opened my car door and was starting to get inside. They scrambled like decapitated chickens; some started to get into their patrol cars, while others ran towards me. As I peeled out of the parking spot and towards the exit, I saw Porfiry amongst those running at me. I hit him with the passenger door as a way of saying goodbye.

Before I finally made it out of that lot, I saw Javert walk right into my car’s path. He wasn’t holding any weapon, or doing anything to force me to stop; all he did was stand there, staring directly at me. It looked like the perfect opportunity to get rid of him. Slam down on the accelerator, and run him down, crushing his tiny ribs underneath my tires.
But that stare…. Those blue eyes, illuminated by the flames…. “Looking through your soul” doesn’t begin to describe how much they pierced through me. Like I was nothing against him, just a tiny ant scurrying across the picnic table. There was no way I could resist those eyes….

At the last moment, I swerved away from him, causing my car to jump over a curb. Missed my best opportunity to kill the man, just because I was too weak. To add to the insult, he didn’t try to stop me as I drove the car back onto the street. He just smiled at me, and even waved a little, as I sped down the road.

There was a lot of anger in me then, but I still had to keep thinking straight. I’d just turned myself into a fugitive; my home burnt down, and the police likely pursuing me. Trying to escape in a car which they know I’m in would have been idiotic. New transportation was necessary, and I found it when I pulled over at a gas station.

The man who I hit repeatedly in the head with my sword may not have appreciated me taking his car, but I never heard him say any complaints, so I’m assuming it’s all good. I didn’t kill him, at least. Probably. Head wounds are hard to figure out. If he’s lucky, he’ll wake up sometime later, with the only side affect being suffering crippling migraines for the rest of his life.

Driving a stolen car around in public isn’t the best way to avoid attention, but it’s better than using my previous one. There were also some nice things in the trunk: jump cables, a first aid kit, and for some ridiculous reason, a paddle. Yes, just one. Hell if I know why he had it in his car.

I’ve driven back to Austin. This time, I’ll be staying downtown. My intent is that the police will have a harder time finding me, and Slender Man won’t be able to act as freely with so many people around. Thus begins my adventures as a homeless bum living downtown, on the run from police under the command of an eldritch abomination, and also likely from the regular police now that I’ve stolen a car. Fun adventures for us all.

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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Attempted Escape

No idea if this is going to get through. Not that it really matters if it does, but I feel oddly compelled to make sure that everyone out there knows about every aspect of my life.

A brief lesson on the structure of my apartment complex. My address is on the third floor, in a hallway which contains three other residences. From the ground level, you can’t see inside the hallway, but you can see anyone who comes in or out of the hallway. It’s for this reason that I’ve been staying inside my apartment for the entire week. The police have been keeping at least two patrol cars around the complex; officially because of the murder which occurred, but they’re always positioned so they can keep an eye on my hallway and my balcony. Making sure I don’t try to make a break for it.

Last night, that’s exactly what I did.
Around 2 in the morning, I left my room, and went to the door of one of the hallway’s other occupants. So long as I remained in the passage, the police wouldn’t see me. I picked the lock on the door, and quietly went inside. Fortunately for me, the occupant was still asleep. I went over to that room’s balcony (a balcony which, unlike mine, did not have police staring at it constantly).

Then came the hard part. Out on the balcony, if I pulled myself over the railing, and slowly lowered myself, I could land on the balcony the next floor down; from there, I could lower myself to the ground. That had been the plan, but the below freezing temperatures we’ve been having lately complicated things. Not falling multiple stories becomes more difficult when the things you’re climbing down have ice on them. It took fifteen minutes of painfully slow working before my feet touched the ground, and by then, my hands were almost numb from the cold. No time to complain; had things to do. Like many college towns, bikes are a common form of transportation, and so I was able to commandeer one from the bike racks using my lock picks. With it, I rode off to my target.

You see, while Slender Man may not have many easily exploitable weaknesses, Javert does. And as long as he’s in my apartment’s parking lot trying to watch me, he isn’t at his home protecting this weakness.

I would have thought that such an important police officer would have greater security measures around his house, but perhaps being employed by Slendy has made him complacent. There was only one man guarding the building, a half asleep police officer by the front door. After application of my knife, he won’t be waking up again. Armed with his pistol, I picked the locks of the front door, and entered the home.

Both Javert’s wife and son were quick to comply with me when I woke them pointing a gun in their faces. They were herded into the kitchen, where I bound their hands and legs (I know that tying them to the railroad tracks would have been more traditional, but that would have been such a long walk, and I was feeling lazy). After that, all I needed do was use the radio from the corpse outside to contact Javert and tell him what I’ve done.

Less than ten minutes later, his patrol car came screeching into the front lawn, and the man came forth, rage pouring off of him. He barely even paused to throw open the door and storm inside. Very convenient for me, as I had been waiting next to the door, and quickly put my pistol to the back of his head.


Now, here’s how things should have gone: I pulled the trigger, causing Javert’s brains to splatter all over the floor. Complete success for Arkady.

Here’s how things went instead: I pointed the gun at the back of his head, but instead of being killed like I wanted him to be, he spun around and grabbed my arm so the shot went wild and I dropped the gun. He reached for his pistol, but I was able to kick it out of his hand before he could shoot it.

Soon everything’s devolved into a brawl, with our guns lying somewhere on the ground. I’ll be honest, I took most of the beating. Even if I have tried to train, he’s still stronger and faster than I am. God knows how long it went on; by the time I threw him off, we were both bruised and bleeding badly. In the brief lull we had, we dove for the guns on the ground. When he picked up his, he aimed it at me; I aimed mine at his son.

Locked in a standoff. A stupid move on my part, but I hadn’t been planning for him to survive the seconds after he entered the house. For the situation I was in instead, I had no exit strategy. Just a hope that if I kept making stuff up as I went, something good would come of it. And it had wound up with neither of us able to make a move lest the other pull the trigger. The notion of just shooting his son and getting it all over with was entertained for a while, but events forced a change of strategy.

At that moment, the room suddenly became very cold. Fog streamed in, and soon we were joined by a familiar figure. Javert and I both lost interest in each other; Slender Man manifesting does tend to have that affect. He went to his knees and bowed; I tried to shoot the tall man. Except no matter how many times I pulled that trigger, no bullets came out. I threw the gun aside and tried charging him. Had I been thinking, I would have at least used my knife; instead, I was charging with my fist.

We’ll never know if punching is his one true weakness, as I was stopped dead before I could reach him. I don’t know what it was, I just couldn’t move. That thing walked closer to me, so smug and dignified. I felt something new as he came closer; some kind of communication. Not words, but feelings, sensations. Hard to put them into English words. Feelings of euphoria, of greatness, filling me, with the promise of more, more than I could ever have imagined….

I tried to spit on his suit. If I couldn’t punch him to make him shut up, I thought maybe that would. All I remember after that is feeling of intense pain through my entire body, worse than anything before, and then waking up in my apartment again.

I’m still feeling the pain from that. Like a burning down every nerve. Just breathing hurts; typing is agony. This post is being fueled on anger and spite; like hell I’m going to let him stop me from putting something online with some stupid little pain.

This apartment is more a trap than it was before. The doors out won’t open, no matter how hard I pull at them. I’ve tried breaking the windows, but everything I throw at them bounces off without any sign of cracking. Everything. Outside the windows, all I see is a solid wall of mist. It looks as though my apartment has been swallowed up by a sea of clouds, drifting through the emptiness….

Something big is going to happen soon. What exactly, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. But whatever it is, I’m going to be ready for it.

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Monday, February 7, 2011

Dreaming

I’m not sure if this post is going to get through. Internet’s been spotty today. All electronics have. It’s been causing me some degree of inconvenience.

It started last night with a dream. In it, I was lying in my bed. A normal situation, one which wouldn’t have tipped me off to this setting’s fictitious nature, but there were subtle differences. Chief amongst them was the slight feeling of weightlessness, like I was a push away from floating off into the air.

Fog filled this dream room of mine, but I could still somehow see clearly through it. There didn’t appear to be anything of note around me, apart from the fog, at first. Then I looked up at the ceiling. There he way, hanging like a black spider, looking down on me. I didn’t count how many limbs he had supporting him (certainly more than four), as my attention was being drawn to his face. I’ve always seen his face as blank, featureless. But this time there was a mouth. It stretched open, wider than a mouth should be able to, revealing rows of razor sharp teeth. My eyes were mesmerized by the image, but my hands still worked, and they grabbed the knife I’d hidden under my pillow. As my grip tightened on the handle, he dropped from the ceiling. I flung myself out of the bed, just getting off before he landed where I’d been. Black tentacles…. Arms…. Branches…. Whatever…. Lunged for me, forcing me to run for my door.

The moment I touched the handle, the setting changed around me. I wasn’t in my room anymore, but a hallway. The walls of the hall were grey, as was the floor and ceiling; even the air had a grey tint to it. This hallway didn’t have any visible beginning or end to it. A corridor of grey, stretching on forever. I walked along it for half an hour, but nothing changed. For an experiment, I cut a deep slash into the wall on my right with my knife, and started walking. No matter how fast I walked, even when I started running, the mark remained in the same position relative to me.

Of course it didn’t take long before Slender Man made his appearance. I could see him ahead of me, rapidly coming closer. He wasn’t even humanoid anymore, he had become a constantly shifting thing of darkness, only his face remaining constant. A good part of my mind was screaming in terror, shouting that I had to run from this thing barreling towards me. I shut it out as best I could; running wouldn’t help when you can’t move. I forced my legs to stay still, and grabbed my knife’s handle with both hands, in the hope it would keep my grip from shaking too much.

In seconds, he was in front of me. The blackness reached out from him, coming to envelope me, while his tooth filled mouth moved closer to my face. At that moment, I screamed, and lunged at him with my knife.



And then, I woke up. I was lying on the floor of my bedroom, next to a red puddle formed from the blood pouring out of my nose. My knife was next to me, covered in blood. It was dented, cracked, with large pieces of the blade gone. No longer useable, which leaves me with just two kitchen knives left.

My room had been completely trashed. The bookshelf was overturned, my clothes were scattered all over the floor, the overhead light was shattered, and my bed’s mattress had long slashes crisscrossing it.

Through my window, I looked down into the courtyard, where I could see Slender Man standing there, in his usual stately appearance. No writhing mass of darkness or rows of teeth, just a tall faceless man in a suit. He was holding something in his hand, which looked like a ball. It was still too dark outside for me to tell what it was.

Now that morning has come, I know what it was in his hand. Last night, one of the residents on the first floor was decapitated. His head was found in the courtyard. The police are all over the complex. Each one of them is someone who I’ve seen working with Javert. He himself is overseeing this, standing out in the courtyard, smugly smiling at my window.

I need to get out of here. But I can’t. The police are everywhere outside; if I try to leave, they’ll catch me. I need a plan, I need something. Some way to get out of this place.

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Friday, February 4, 2011

Porfiry

God damn it’s cold here. I wake up there’s snow on the ground. This is Texas; the cold should be happening to other people, not us!

On the bright side, cold weather means no one goes outside unless they have to, which means this city is a ghost town. How I love to wander the deserted streets, my only companion the chilling wind which blows away all the refuse and human filth, leaving everything perfectly empty…. Not one human around me, just white snow, making everything look so new, so clean.

Then that faceless bastard went and ruined it all. Don’t know when he appeared, just that I was suddenly aware of a change around me. The wind became harsher, biting through my layers of clothes like they weren’t there. The sunlight dimmed; no clouds were covering it, the light coming from it seemed lessened, and the shadows around me seemed to lengthen. It’s impossible to determine the time which he appears, just the time which you become aware of him. Like something in the background suddenly appearing in the foreground.

His appearance lasted only a few moments, not long enough for me to do anything about him. He wasn’t looking at me, but at something behind me. After he vanished, I turned around to see just what it had been that had been so firmly holding Slendy’s attention. There was a man walking towards me, one of Javert’s crowd. Let’s call him Porfiry, as it’s been a while since I’ve thrown in such a reference. He’s a slightly balding man, with a figure that implies he’s hit the donut stand a few too many times. I’d never paid him much mind before, just seeing him as an errand boy for Javert.

I’ll spare the details of our conversation; if you want to imagine how Porfiry talks, just take the overly purple writing which I used at the start of this most exquisite work of blogging, and then read it in the most nasally and condescending tone imaginable. The entirety of his monologue was thus: Haha, pathetic fool, there is no way you can defy Mr. Slender’s great power. We can arrest you at any time so you should surrender now and make it easier on yourself, blah blah.
Though he used much larger words and a greater amount of filler. I believe he was expecting a response from me, so the poor man seemed mightily surprised when I walked away without a word. If Javert wants to arrest me, he should go ahead and try it. Having someone like Porfiry spout his babble is a waste of time.

If that was their next big move, I’ll be sorely disappointed. However, I doubt it was. I’m still unable to go out publically too much anymore, which has prevented me from attending self defense classes, or visiting the library. If nothing happens, I’m going to try something, but Javert doesn’t strike me as the type to waste an opportunity to take advantage of an opponent’s immobility. Neither does Slendy, though that may just be me trying to put a human personality on a distinctly unhuman thing.

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