A Month Ago, A Year Ago

The first thing I did after getting out of the hospital was find a pay phone and call Nick and Kay. I got Kay's answering machine for some reason, but Nick answered. I told him what really happened the day I was forced to walk out of my house. What I saw. And what I thought about it. He said it was interesting, but he wasn't in a position to come to me and help me discover more about it. So instead, I did something I've been meaning to do for a long while now: I sent an e-mail to Guess, asking if we could meet.

Turns out, he was already heading in my direction, so Michelle and I started heading in his. We met in a designated motel, we sat down together... and we talked.

Truth be told, I debated for a long time on whether to post this. To tell this story. But if this day has taught me nothing else, it's that stories need to be told. Not just for our sanity, but to actually make a difference.

I just hope that the good this story will do will override the bad.


That day, over a month ago, when my mind was shattered and my will was crushed, the Slender Man forced me to walk outside, to come to Him. He was angry, and this was the only option left to Him, because He couldn't come to me on his own. He couldn't see me, but He could alter my mind just like anyone else. And it hurt, because He made me aware for all of it, He was that angry.

But that was just it. My continued cognitive awareness, the angle I approached Him at, and how close I got to Him before Michelle managed to stop me, all contributed to something I think may have been unique. People have seen Him up close before and lived to tell about it, myself included. But only when He was looking right at them, when control of the situation was His. In all records of encounters with this thing, I don't think anyone has ever approached the Slender Man from behind.

And... it was difficult to make out, but I remember that moment so clearly, the clearest of everything about those last few days. The monster kept turning, looking for me, tendrils stabbing in random directions. And there, beneath that writhing mass, somewhere in the region of where a kidney would be on a human... was a tear in the fabric of His suit.

A tear in the suit. A simple little rip, as though the suit actually were made of cloth. Is it even made of cloth? Is it a covering, or somehow a part of the creature's body? I have no idea, but I can see it so clearly, right down to the frayed threads.

And right then, He turned, and the rising sun hit Him at just the right angle, and I could see it clear as day: underneath the tear in the fabric... was a scar. Knotted and raised scar tissue, directly following the line of the rip.

Just... even now, when I've done practically nothing but think about this, it still blows my mind. A goddamn scar, as in a healed wound, on a timeless, partially incorporeal abomination. Has anyone ever once known a blow on that thing to last more than a moment, let alone persist long enough to leave a scar? Nothing hurts this thing, nothing stops this thing! Yet clearly, some time ago, something did.

Michelle and I spoke with Guess about what I saw. This is what he had to say.

-

Me: "I just... don't understand it at all. It's completely outside anything this thing has ever been known to do."

Guess: "That's the nature of it, anyway. Total unpredictability, no?"

Me: "Yeah, when it's to His own benefit. What could a scar possibly have to do with anything? It was barely even visible."

Guess: "Perhaps... it's a trap.  That's not outside His realm, is it?"

Me: "It could be... though I'm having difficulty comprehending how it could have been set. I can assure you He had no idea from which direction I was approaching.

Michelle:  It's true. He kept looking all around with no real pattern, up until He noticed me approaching. I don't think He could see her at all.

Me: "I could barely see the mark, beneath all the..." (I make a vague writhing motion with one hand, indicative of tentacles moving around. Then I sigh.) "I'm still not sure if I imagined it or not, but it's the clearest thing I can remember from that day because it was such a shock."

Guess: "Maybe He doesn't know it's there?"

Me: (I frown.) "That's possible... That might even be why I remember it so clearly, like it jumped out at me, because-" (I blink, surprised.) "...because the scar was the only thing that was real."

Michelle: (To me.) Like with that essay you wrote?

Me: (I nod.) That might also be a possible explanation of why, if He actually didn't know the mark was there. It wouldn't register. Like a blind spot, only more like a... numb spot, I guess.

Guess: "Interesting. It's possible. And perhaps entirely true. For a moment, that was all. Just you, and a scar. Someone page J.K. Rowling."

Me: "Heh... That's hardly the comparison I'd use, especially if the scar and the monster aren't even made of the same thing... And that's a big if, mind."

Guess: "No doubt, if it did exist, it must have come from somewhere. Focusing on the origin will lead us - you - to the solution."

Me: (I glance at Guess briefly, then look back down.) "I was thinking... and so was Nick, when I called him and told him... that maybe it had to do with... Zero. That maybe he wasn't wrong."

Guess: (Looks thoughtful.) "...A sword wound would scar easily."

Me: "Or even a pocketknife, if Nightcrawler's report from a year ago is to be believed. Dimensional bleeding or not, the event had to have happened somewhere."

Guess: "Ah, yes, the dimensional bleeding. And... oh. And if there was a scar, there must have been an open wound once, and therefore, bleeding... 'It is a monster, but the monster bleeds.'" (He pauses a moment.) "I confess, all the blood makes me rather woozy."

Me: "How can it bleed, though? People have hurt Him, yes, but it never lasts more than a moment, not even when Ava blew his arms apart. And does that suit of His even qualify as clothing to be torn? This is what's confusing to me. And Zero, last year. Almost no one gives a damn about Tulpa anymore, and yet nearly all the stories focused on a stab wound of some kind. And if I had to guess, I'd say that way more people thought of stories than actually wrote them down, which would definitely still count for something."

Guess: "There are strong and powerful minds out there, and strong and powerful forces. As you say, many more stories were left unsaid and not written down. If there was enough raw... strangeness behind the Solstice Event, anything could have happened. Factor in the dimensional bleeding and the pseudo-magic of the Solstice itself and you've got, well, something, if not a scar."

Me: "But..." (I put my head in my hands.) "I just don't understand how it happened. Or why it happened when it did, if it happened when I think it did. And most of all, what to do about it. I mean, do I tell people about this? What if it's all another trick, like with Reach? What if people start pulling crazy stunts and get themselves killed because I said there was an opportunity? I just have no idea."

Michelle: Val, people pull crazy shit whether or not they have a reason for it.

Me: If they choose this as their reason, that makes it my fault. Especially if I turn out to be wrong.

Guess: (Leans back.) "I don't think you need to worry about that. Our circle of survivors has grown wary and intelligent." (He barks out a laugh.) "Mostly."

Michelle: You can't be held responsible for other people's stupidity, Valerie. Everyone's actions are their own. You tell me that all the time.

Me: (I remain silent.)

 Guess: "...I'm not a doctor, but I believe scar tissue opens up more readily than regular skin, if we are to be comparing His composition to our own. There is no reason to do so, and yet we must to make sense of it. If we cut, tear, pull, maybe He'll be ripped apart."

Me: "That's what Nick said... He said that everything can break, it's just a matter of finding out where to hit it."

Guess: "So now that you've found a crack, how do you suppose we - you - could exploit it?"

Michelle: "We were kind of hoping you'd have an idea in that department, actually."

Me: (After a long pause.) "Guess... Erik... that's the second time you corrected yourself when you said 'we', and I understand why you'd think that way, but... just something about the way you said it... worries me."

Guess: (He spreads his hands.) "This is your discovery, my dear. I'm but a mere scientist, trying to make his way in the world, and... maybe help some few that need it. And... to be frank, I can't say that the recent addition to my family has made me all that more comfortable with human companionship."

Me: "...Do you miss them? Your friends, your family... Anansi?"

Guess: "It's for the best that I stay far away. Even from Anansi and his kin."

Me: (I nod.) "That I understand... Doesn't make it any easier though."

Guess: "That's what whiskey is for."

Me: (I smile sadly.) "No, that's what people are for. People who already understand why you can't go back, and with whom you can keep each other company, and maybe forget the reason for such voluntary isolation, even for a night. Losing my head for a while didn't make me forget that."

-

A year ago today, an ordinary man convinced many, many people to join him on an extraordinary undertaking. Those people were afraid, more terrified then they'd been in their lives, but they knew that he was just as afraid as they were, and they followed him because they knew he was one of them. Not some prophicized hero come to do what no one else could. Not a legend come to life. Certainly no one with a destiny. He merely had an idea, and he executed it, like anyone with simple courage would have done.

Whatever happened that night, one year ago, Zero was wrong. It wasn't meaningless. Maybe the combined will of the people actually had an impact, and maybe it didn't. Maybe what I saw a month and a half ago was something else entirely. But that doesn't change the impact that sudden, unquestionable unity had on everyone who, until then, was floundering helplessly, alone, in the dark. And even the slightest possibility that it wasn't just that, that it was something more... well, damned if it doesn't give me just the teeniest bit of hope.

Not just hope though. The implications for this idea are astounding, but the possibilities for the consequences are terrifying. Give it a moment of thought and it's not hard to imagine what could happen, both good and bad.

I may never understand the monster's position between reality and fantasy, between existence and nonexistence. But... I know the answer lies somewhere in that boundary. I know it.

I went into the jungle. I proved that the monster bleeds, bleeds in a way that sticks. And I came back to tell you all what I found.

There has to be a way to end this.

Moving On

On Friday, Michelle and I went back to my house one last time. It was during the few hours in the late morning when my brothers are at school, my dad is at work, and my mom is out running errands. To be honest, I kind of wasn't sure if Mom would be gone this time. I mean, if my daughter had been missing for the past... holy shit, how long has it been since I actually entered that house? Two months already? More? As excruciating as that time has been, it honestly didn't feel like that long.

But no, the place was deserted. Not that an empty house was all that unusual, I guess. Back Before, it was a time I looked forward to. Now it just felt... disconcerting. Dizzying, even. Hardly surprising, in hindsight, but at the time, the utter alienness of my own home really threw me for a loop.

Michelle was more expedient than me, of course. While I was running my hands over old books and toys, almost reverent in my nostalgia, she was already digging through my dad's stash of useful goodies in the basement and garage (I made her wait for me to check the garage, because neither of us should really be outside alone; my house is in a pretty densely-populated suburb and not particularly near any wooded areas, but considering my front fucking yard was the site of our last Sighting... yeah). My dad guy is a legitimate hoarder, no question about it, but neither one of us will say no to a supply of tasers, rope, tools, camping gear, canned food, and a single handgun. No bullets to be found, oddly enough, and I have no clue what make it is, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it I suppose. We also grabbed a lot of clothes. I probably don't want to know how Michelle has been paying for hotel rooms, but I'm pretty sure I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for longer than I'd care to think about.

After that we looked for personal effects. Specifically electronics. Essentials like my recorder and my camera we took. Other things were deemed less important though. My cell phone had run out of battery by that point, but we didn't bother trying to recharge it. We couldn't take it with us, and I knew I hadn't made any suspicious calls or texts, so we just left it there. I was a bit sad to leave my GPS behind, but the risks for keeping that thing were even greater than the cell phone, so we just cleared its history and turned it off. When Michelle found my iPod in a desk drawer, I took it out of her hand and slammed it into the wastebasket and didn't look at it again, for reasons that should be painfully obvious by now.

I was  surprised to find that my netbook hadn't moved from where I left it, plugged in and open, on my bed beside the window. My desktop computer was similarly untouched; even its internet history hadn't been checked. That had been my biggest worry, honestly, that someone would think to check my browser history when they realized I was missing, and it's the main reason we decided to check back at all. But it didn't look like it had been touched. Nothing in my room did.

Nothing in my entire house indicated that I had even been missed.

I can't tell whether I should be relieved or disturbed. On the one hand, it saves me a lot of trouble trying to evade anyone who might recognize me. On the other... there's just this whole sense of wrongness to it. Still, it fits with what I can remember of the last few days before I left... I'm used to being invisible in the house and kind of doing my own thing, but right at the end there, no one would even look at me...

If it's another layer of protection for those left behind, then I guess I'm alright with it. Not much different than how it usually is anyway. I mean, I checked the photo albums on a hunch, in case my house was pulling some kind of bullshit Roxas-Twilight-Town crap on me, but I'm still in every one of them, so it's not as though I've been mindfucked out of existence (and god help me for even considering that as a realistic option, but dammit, what else is new). In all honesty, it's probably a good thing that no one's worried about me or trying to find me. It'll only keep them safer. So there's no reason for this to bother me at all.

But... just in case I was wrong, and someone did notice, I left a note on the kitchen counter for my mother. If she can't see it, that probably means she doesn't remember me. But if she does remember, then she should be able to see it, so at least she'll know I'm alive.

(Speaking of which, thank you for your interest, Jean, but I left the previous post in code on purpose. I don't mind sharing the contents of my message with you all - record-keeping is very important, when all's said and done - but if Mom can read my note, I don't want her googling its contents and coming across this blog. However, it's good to hear from you and know you're still around. Thank you.)

I cleared my desktop computer completely. All my files are gone, all my programs uninstalled. It's basically an empty machine now. I took my netbook with me, along with its power cord, an external battery, and all the flash drives I own. I refused to leave even the slightest hint behind. I also deleted my facebook account, my youtube, my various writing project profiles, and that stupid Gaia Online avatar I had made years and fucking years ago but still had my email address and could still be traced back to me. Anything I could think of, I got rid of. The only things left up are this blog, and a barely-used-but-still-useful Twitter account. Those two are my only means of online communication now. Anything else under my name is either a coincidence or a sick joke. I even took all my personal papers like my birth certificate, passport, etc. Also my debit card, which I plan to empty my bank account with eventually. Still haven't decided whether easily-lost cash is safer than easily-traced credit. I did buy a couple of go-phones yesterday though, for emergencies.

Transferring everything from Christian's car to my own was the one real indulgence I insisted on. My car's gas mileage isn't as good, and it's still attached to my name and all, which is probably dangerous, but if we're going to be on the run and traveling all over the country, I would much rather we were not using a stolen car to do it. Nothing to do with morals, really, just common sense. Being recognized as a missing person (who is, in fact, missing voluntarily, at least this time around) is much safer than being recognized as a wanted fugitive in two countries. Not to mention that, as bizarre, convoluted, and contradictory as proxy infrastructure appears to be, there is absolutely no sense in driving a car that may or may not be tagged with some kind of tracking device. You just honestly never know. I do plan on changing my license plates later though, if I can.

And... we left. Michelle took Christian's car and I took mine, and we dumped the former in a parking garage in Philadelphia and headed on our way. And I can't tell you how surreal it seemed, turning my back on my home for what was probably (hopefully? fuck i don't know what to hope for anymore) the final time. "Conflicted" isn't a strong enough word for it, really.

I'll try to keep you posted. Not much else for me at this point.



I'll be meeting someone soon.

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I guess the best thing I can compare the feeling to is what happened at the climax of A Wrinkle in Time, except instead of making me compliant... the pounding, the droning... it hurt. It hurt more than I ever thought I was capable of comprehending. It drilled into my mind, pulled out and faded away just long enough to break my concentration and make my guard slip, and then slammed back in again, harder, ripping my sanity to shreds. And because the source of the pain was rooted in something I had always tied myself to so deeply, I couldn't separate myself from it. I couldn't guard myself. I couldn't make it stop.

...I'm still not sure if the whole not sleeping thing was of my own volition or not. All I know about that time is that I was in less pain, but I was even more helpless to fight back than before, because I couldn't concentrate anymore. I couldn't think. And then gradually the pain came back as my body started to shut down.

But it wasn't so much a method of torture as it was a way of ensuring compliance, I think. Complacency.

I'll spare you the nightmares if you give up and die. 

I'll make it easy for you. 

Just let it all go. 

Just wait for it to happen. 

You don't have to do anything but wait. 

Nothing scary, nothing hard. 

And

Aren't you so much better off this way?

But that's the thing about nightmares, these near-constant visions of death and pain that held me in their grip since the moment I walked out my front door. They're scary and terrifying, horrible and disgusting, but at some point you have to realize that there's only so much evil in the world, only so much that can be thrown at you.

And... despite everything, I finally found the source of the cycle. The steady thu-thump that kept time to the music and kept me in line, unable to break free of the rhythm, all the way down to my core.

...Do any of you actually understand how powerful music is? The shrill, armor-piercing note of a flute? The way a melodious violin can lead you on an endless, mindless dance? Or the chill that goes up your spine when the vocalist changes key... Or how a tritone will always, without fail, inspire fear in a captive audience. All these things happen to you when you listen, and you don't even realize how expertly you're being manipulated. To you, it's just sounds, to be given no more attention than a moth fluttering by a street lamp. But your very heartbeat will align itself with the beat of a drum, beating in time with the music with or without your conscious permission.

And... that's exactly what happened. 

...I've always maintained that the way to break a cycle of control is to cut out the starting point. It took so long to find, but... You have to understand. There's a vicegrip effect that happens. If you try to assess yourself, or move around, or do anything at all... it just tightens. And tightens. And tightens. Visions were one thing. Pain was one thing. But when He takes hold of your volition, when He makes you not want to break free, there's nothing you can do.

So instead, I did the only thing I could. The only thing He would allow me to want. But I did it in a way that would also cut out the root, break the cycle.

The music's hold on me... His hold on me... was connected through my own heartbeat. The one rhythm that is always there, that will always be there, until the day that control - His or my own - doesn't even matter anymore.

And the only way to stop it was

was

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to see that, Michelle. I'm sorry for putting you through that. I'm so sorry for what I had to do.

I'm so sorry.

I was afraid.

That's... really all there is to say on the matter. It's the reason I left. And it's the reason I took so long to come back.


He was outside. He couldn't get to me, so He commanded me to come to Him, and ripped apart my mind until I had no choice but to obey. He had a foothold, after the lost time in New York. Still does, maybe.

I walked out my front door fully expecting to die. I wanted to die. I had known this was coming for so long. But... at the very last second, I suddenly realized I was afraid to die.

But my own will was already long gone. With every beat, every sound... the music played continuously, ceaselessly, wearing away at my sanity like the steady pounding of waves on the shore. I'm not certain anymore where the point of no return is. The point where you become so empty and the noise echos off the walls of your soul that almost isn't there anymore and the whole thing just collapses under its own weight.

I had collapsed. Luke facilitated that. I wanted to help him, to attempt to repair his shattered maelstrom of a mind, to try and do one last bit of good before I died. The monster was waiting for that moment. Luke was nothing but His tool, even in defiance.

I reached out to the servant, but the Master intercepted. And only an hour later... I would have done anything to make the pain stop. I would have taken little Kimberley by the hand and led her to the forest. I would have shoved Kay into the embrace of the Bleeding Tree and never looked back. I would have painted operator symbols on the walls with the blood of my parents, if it meant I could have a voice to scream with again.

The girl in the iceberg was swallowed whole without resistance. And it's pretty clear by now that I will never be able to do enough good before I die. Not anymore.