Keep Moving

We're on our way.

This Aries guy had better hope I don't find him when I get there.

Also, good work, Tara. I know, yes, you probably should have shot him. But you stood up for yourself and your friends, which, speaking as the one who stood up for you in school, is pretty fucking amazing. I'm proud of you, girl. Give yourself a pat on the back.

And Penny, don't be so hard on her. She's new to all of this and she's doing great so far.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to lock her in an iron fucking box when we get there to keep her out of trouble. But still, good job on not dying yet.

Christ, I almost sounded like an actual fucking adult there for a second.

And I guess I should probably talk about what Penny said. About being a proxy.

I really don't want to, though. I'm trying not to think about it right now. I don't have the fucking time for a fucking identity crisis.

I'll freak out when Tara and Penny are safe and the Timberpup situation is resolved.

You know, speaking of, it's weird. I was kind of expecting Mister Gas Mask to show up by now and make the same implied threats that Slendy made somehow. He hasn't.

However, something weird did happen, when we checked into this hotel. One of the three missing bullets? You know, from when I was blacked out? It was waiting on my pillow like a fucking mint.

I'm keeping it in my jacket pocket, separate from my other ammo. Just in case.

Anyway, I'm going to go grab breakfast for Chelsea and me. We need to be ready to head out soon.

Crisis of Morality

The agony has subsided. Slightly. I should probably go to a doctor. I'm not sure I want to trust one, though. I mean, I know I'm wanted for questioning in Illinois...and New Mexico...and Indiana....but I really don't know if this thing is set right.

Oh well. Rationing the vodka a bit, but it's helping.

Speaking of things I need to drink to do, I went to church today. Spoke to a priest with a...veery edited version of the truth. I didn't get much help.

God, it all happened so fucking fast. I was typing and then bam, there was the fucking Slender Man, and he's so, sooo much worse in person than I ever could have imagined. Before I could even really react he had me up in the air practically fucking encased in tentacles. I managed to get my arm free and I shot him about fix times in the "face" area. It didn't do anything, but I thought I was dead at the time. Might as well die fighting.

There was a sickening crunch, and I black out after that. I'm assuming the crunch was my arm. I wish it had been my neck.

See, I know what I'm supposed to do now. I know why the Slender Man thrashed me. When I came too after losing half a fucking day, I left myself a clue--or Slendy did, or some muhahaha-ing idiot in a mask did, whatever.

My browser was open to the Everyman Hybrid wiki. One line in particular was highlighted, on the page for the Second Corenthal Report:

"Father, I would make sure it was okay with Man before we did that. He is very, very greedy. Apparently, the Reverend didn't know that Man doesn't share."'

Smiley has taken children marked by Slendy. You know, future victims like so many other fucking kids. The next generation of Prisms and Zeke Straums and Milos. He wants me to bring them back to him, and I'm pretty sure I can imagine what he'd do if I won't.

What do I do? If I save the kids, they're doomed to a Runner's life, at best. If I don't, Smiley will torture them to death, at best, and then Slendy will make me wish I was dead long before he ends it for me.

I almost wonder if I shouldn't just, and this is going to sound really fucking sick, kill them myself. Quickly and painlessly. Bullet to the brain or a snap of their tiny fragile necks. They won't have to worry about the Slender Man or the Smiling Man or whatever else is fucking out there. Then maybe I could shoot myself and save Slendy the fucking satisfaction.

But if I die, then there's no one to keep Smiley at bay. There's no one to keep it away from Tara.

I know this sounds, like, really fucking crazy, but I'm not sure I can make a good choice in this situation. Can I really give two kids to the fucking Slender Man? Do I even have a fucking choice?

SO

IT TURNS OUT THE SLENDER MAN IS KIND OF A DICK

I'M SHAKING WITH FEAR AND RAGE RIGHT NOW SO I'LL BE BRIEF

I WOKE UP MISSING NINE BULLETS I CAN ACCOUNT FOR SIX OF THOSE

I HAVE NO MEMORY OF THE LAST TWELVE HOURS

OW FUCK SHIT I THINK HE BROKE MY LEFT ARM

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT I'M A LEFTY

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN

I'M GOING TO GO SEE IF I'VE WRITTEN DOWN ANYTHING CRAZY OR IF THERE ARE HIDDEN FILES ON MY COMPUTER AND OH YEAH MAYBE PUT MY ARM IN A SPLINT BECAUSE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IF I WASN'T SO ENRAGED AND FREAKED THE FUCK OUT THIS WOULD PROBABLY HURT MORE

FML

birthofamonster.txt

Okay so this is the thing that Jack of Crazy sent me back when I was still a high school student trying to find a way to kill Smiley. You know, before I became a high school dropout trying to kill Smiley.

There's not a whole lot of context. It just kind of starts.

Anyway, here it is--

JackThorn has entered the Chatroom

PerilousFool: But I'm looking forward to the next one, if it ever comes out.

PerilousFool: Oh, hey Jack.

yournightmare: yo jack wassup?

JackThorn: Its happening.

SephysWife: Is it vague warning thursday already?

yournightmare: lol

JackThorn: Im staring at a bouquet.

WTRainbow: congratulations, you have some flowers

JackThorn: It worked.

SephysWife: What are you talking about?

JackThorn: It was in my daughter's locker. She got to school and there was a bouquet.

yournightmare: lol, stop fukcing with us jack

SephysWife: Yeah, really bad taste.

JackThorn: Whens the last time you saw Cari? Or Jackie? Or Steve? Or Dom?

SephysWife: People leave randomly all the time online. It's a hazard of knowing people on the internet. That doesn't mean we invented a supernatural serial killer.

yournightmare: dude r u serious?

WTRainbow: you believe him, craig?

yournightmare: u cant tell me u werent thinkin this 2

SephysWife: Jack, I think you're getting a little worked up. There's nothing going on.

WTRainbow: i wasn't, because i have half a brain.

yournightmare: fuck you man im not goin 2 just turn my back on jack hes always been there 4 us

JackThorn: We are all doomed. Its going to come after us first. Like it did Cari and Jackie and Dom.

SephysWife: Stop it, Jack. It's not funny.

yournightmare: maybe we can stop it?

PerilousFool: It doesn't have a weakness. We never gave it one.

WTRainbow: ****, seriously?

SephysWife: Don't encourage him, ****. You're better than this.

SephysWife: The Smiling Man is not real. The Slender Man is not real. You can't just make up a monster and have it exist. The world does not work that way.

SephysWife: When the rest of you have grown up, let me know.

SephysWife: Bye.

SephysWife has left the chatroom.

yournightmare: you leavin' 2 will?

WTRainbow: not yet.

WTRainbow: don't get me wrong, i don't believe in any of this.

WTRainbow: but i miss cari. i thought we had something, you know?

WTRainbow: and if someone really did put a bouquet in your kid's locker then maybe one of the missing guys is playing a trick on you.

WTRainbow: dom was always kind of a jerk.

JackThorn: Theres nothing we can do.

JackThorn: The Smiling Man has come to life.

JackThorn: God help us all.

---

Back to modern day Jeanette again. This is where the file cuts to a completely different block. I think it's an email that Jack got. I'm not sure about the timing. I'll comment on the whole thing after.

Oh, by the way? No response from any of these screen names. At least, not the right response. Sometimes I get false positives, but none of them are the right person.

---

Dear Jack

You fucking moron.

Did you think you actually made anything? That you and your social reject friends actually created Him?

He's been here forever. Looking for a way in. And you gave it to Him and now He's loose.

"God help you." What a loser.

Though it makes sense that you'd be looking for a divine figure to help you.

After all, you just gave one a body.

This is the last time we're going to talk. He's going to show you what He showed me.

I don't think you'll do nearly as well as I have, though.

Yours Truly

The Queen of Cups

ps. You'd better show this to Jeanette. Some day me and her are going to have a friendly chat. Royals should be well acquainted with each other, after all.

pps. Hey Jeanette. How's your eye? Oh, that's right. Silly me.

----

Okay, a few things here. This is Jeanette here. One, I'm pretty sure some pretty hefty editing was done to the letter and the chatlog. I'm not sure why.

Two. This was sent to me two weeks before I had my Significant Peripheral Vision Downgrade. If I had been updating this in real time, I'm sure you reading this would have seen this as foreshadowing or something, but, no, I spoiled my lost eye weeks ago. I'd be sympathetic, but I'm still the one with only one fucking eye, so I'm not, really.

Three, I still haven't met this bitch, but I've seen...things. I'm not sure how to describe them. It's all been pretty innocuous, but...

Okay, remember way back when I started this whole blog? You know, in real time, before Smiley showed up? And I talked about having weird dreams?

I never mentioned what was in them because it wasn't important. None of it had anything to do with anything, including Smiley. I've read about people in the Slender Man stories all dreaming about trees and bags and evil shit like that. My dreams were not like that.

Most of them were me somewhere, I don't know. Some sort of public building every time, never the same one. And in them, I'm just talking to someone. I don't remember what she looks like or sounds like, but I do remember she has the Most Punchable Face I've ever seen. Just this self-satisfied smug expression that you just want to smack right in the mouth and make her spit out those pearly white goddamn teeth. I never remember the conversation.

But those are my dreams. You see why I never brought them up. I mean, I never even hit Miss Punchable in them.

But I think she's the Queen of Cups.

I mean, just read what she wrote. Tell me you don't want to just punch her in the goddamn mouth.

I'm not sure what they are. Maybe it's the future. Maybe we're having dream conversations. All I know is they've been happening to me pretty much all my life.

Also, I'm pretty sure she's working for Mr. Smiles. Somehow.

..which means she's my nemesis. Great. Next time I need to make sure to dream punch her.

But, all that exposition aside....there's something else. I censored PerilousFool's name. Because I knew who she was and....I'll just explain it in the journal entry I wrote afterward:

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 5:02 AM

I am such an idiot.

She was so quick to come up with the idea, that maybe smiley is like the slender man, wasn't she? Such a big leap of logic to make. Why didn't I realize this then?

Because I'm a fucking moron.

Why hasn't she told me? Why hasn't she said a goddamn thing!?

People have died! They've fucking died! Fuck, one of them fucking fell on me! I thought she was my best fucking friend but it turns out no, she doesn't fucking care enough to tell me that she was on of the ones who fucking made this fucking bastard in the first fucking place god fucking damn it why am I crying

I still can't stop it. I don't know where to begin.

And if I can't stop it now...if Tara's the reason it's here...

I only have a couple weeks before it takes her.

Heliotrope, Lavender, Celandine, Cypress, Larkspur.

Christ I don't even know what half of those are. But that's what Tara's bouquet was.

It's going to come for her, my best friend, my only friend, and one of its creators.

And I can't stop it.

URGGGG!!!

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN SUNDAY, MARCH 6; 6:46 AM

Do you know how much information there is on the Slender Man?! Jesus Fucking Christ!

And it's all contradictory! One site says the (X) repels him, the other says it empowers him! One site says he has no weaknesses, one site says he's too stupid to understand heights, one site says he can be repelled by fucking lasers. I'm not even fucking kidding, people. Fucking lasers. Jesus Christ. Hell, one site says he's a fallen god or a faerie or some shit, I don't even know. And maybe he has telekinesis?

Sometimes he's inscrutable, sometimes he has human minions, sometimes he has twitter fights, sometimes he authors blog posts and hangs out with confused teens, and sometimes he just wants twenty dollars. What. The. Hell. Sometimes he does things because he can, sometimes he's part of some huge and vague game with every other fucking boogeyman in the world. Sometimes he just disappears people, sometimes he leaves their insides out in big trashbags. Sometimes he has tentacles, sometimes he's a tree, sometimes he has a face but it's different depending on who looks, sometimes it's blank.

With all this stuff out there, how can someone know what's true and what isn't? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

God, I'm getting poetic again. I should take a fucking pill for that.

You know, maybe I should just try shooting Smiley. I mean, it worked so well the first couple of times I went after it with a gun, but maybe now's different.

Too bad I don't have a fucking laser.

Jesus Christ. I still cannot believe the fucking lasers.

Well, should get ready for Church. My guess is we'll be praying for the still-missing girls, like every church in town has been doing, every Sunday since this began.

This is Falling Apart

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN THURSDAY, MARCH 3; 5:55 AM

There are many ways I could start this, so I'll just say it outright.

When I opened my locker on Monday, Vanessa's nude, mangled corpse fell on me. It was bound in straps and long, torn sleeves and it was still warm. Her heart had been removed with something precise and impossibly sharp, just cut out along with a section of her ribcage. Her fingernails were missing and her skin was covered in cuts and scratches, her nose was missing, and her eyes looked as though they had been burned from her head.

I was told most of this afterwards because at the time I was screaming hysterically and trying to kick the corpse off of me. I want to call myself stupid or weak but honestly I agree with Tara, that was a perfectly fucking acceptable reaction to the fucking situation.

So there I was, struggling to throw her body off of me, getting caught in the straps and struggling like a fish in a net when I stopped, because IT was right fucking there.

I don't think anyone else saw it, but the Smiling Man looked down at me and offered its hand. It had torn its sleeves off at the wrist, torn the straps of its jacket off wherever they were. It had a head of messy red hair hanging in its face, partially covering up its impossible fucking eyes.

I didn't take its hand. It kept smiling at me, and then vanished.

In good news, the police don't think I did it anymore. But they do think I'm connected to the killer, so I'm under even tighter fucking observation than before. I'm surprised they're not reading this being typed over my fucking shoulder.

I...I don't know what to do anymore. It's changing, somehow. I think...it's like that Jack of Thorns guy said. It's giving itself its own body. I need to get in contact with him. He knows something.

But then what? It's fucking toying with me. It's FUCKING TOYING WITH ME.

Tara's been quiet. I'd like to think she's just afraid, just in mourning for Vanessa...but no, I think the wheels are turning. I think she's getting in over her head. And I also think that the minute I stop being amusing to this goddamn monster it's going to take her, like it almost did when I sold out Felicia.

That reminds me. The latest bouquet was found in the Junior High, across the street, in the locker of a seventh grader.

I don't know what to do. I feel like I should be doing something. I feel like this is my responsibility. But how can I fight a thing like this? Is it even possible?

Maybe I should look up this Slender Man thing that Tara mentioned. She's talked about it before. Maybe, if they're similar enough, they share a weakness.

NOW (3)

I ran into someone today who said he was running from a Tall Man. He said the Tall Man killed his friends, and now the Tall Man was coming for him, slowly, chasing him across the country. He said there were others like himself. Called them 'Runners'. They all had their own, different stories, they all had their own, different demons following them, but in the end, they all had that in common--they were running, and the devil followed.

He saw the state of my clothes, the pack on my back, the suitcase at my side, and asked me what I was running from.

I told him I wasn't running from mine.

I told him I was chasing it.