Abysmal Tale Number Nineteen: Faithful

I guess I am a bit of a horror fanatic. Anything that crawls up out of the depths of the internet that is even remotely scary and I need to check it out. I’ve seen many things, pictures and you tube videos you name it and I have likely seen it. Lately though something else has gained my attention and I am pretty sure that I have gained it’s attention as well.

I am speaking of the internet created beast only known to the masses as Slenderman. A vicious thing with one of the most perfect stories known to exist, a singular line of terror. If you know it exists, it knows you exist. Simple as that. The line there, it eats at you after a while. You don’t think about it and you don’t realize it but sooner or later and usually in a dark place when you’re all alone you feel like you’re being watched from a place where it would normally be impossible for someone to be. Like right behind you while in your room where it is supposed to be safe. A slight chill down your spine where there wasn’t one before and one you can’t explain. This is the beginning of the monster’s influence.

The monster had always been like a ravaging infection that burns through the soul of the internet. The more I read about it the more I wanted, needed to know about what it did. How real is the internet. How fake is it? The blogs are the most terrifying I have found. What would make people want to write such terrible ordeals, talking about how they see this monster. All these stories start the same, they start the same as I did. Some curious person stumbled on to the name and it infects their brain. So they dive into the horror deep end, ravenous for anything they can find any detail and any kind of story that gives them their fix of daily horror. Unlike me though, they go too far and soon the once horror junkie soon turns into a nasty obsession that they just can’t help but sharing with the whole world. Soon they see the tall, faceless man standing out in the woods, they see him in pictures, in reflections and worst of all they see the beast in themselves. They tell the world how they can feel their sanity slipping. The blogs usually take a turn for the worse. The monster starts hunting them and they take their story on the run, never staying in one place for too long yet the monster always seems to catch up and eventually the blog just ends. The common factor of this story is that the monster, sooner or later it always wins. It is the ultimate end of the story, every single one I have ever read no matter what the victim does, they always end up disappearing. Driven insane or take one last stand in a heroic fight they are never heard from again.

The truth is, Slenderman can never die. This is what the internet wants and needs. It’s a little known fact that search engines are fueled by blood and lost souls. Not electricity and code like everyone thinks.

Being a teenager sucks. I don’t know why I seek out the horror of the internet when all I need to do to find it in real life is just turn on the news. There just has to be something wrong with me to want to see people go insane and be lead to an unknown fate. Are these just created characters made for entertainment, some of them obviously are. Badly written and too far over the top to even be considered to be real. Some though have an unsettling touch of reality. Their situations I can relate too, their average lives and existence. These people have friends and dreams just like I do. Guys, girls even sometimes too. I like reading their blogs more often. They seem to last longer. Anyone of these could be me. The truth of the story though as simple as it is seems to be getting to me. I am usually stronger then this. Not susceptible to the lines of horror, but this one is eating at me.

I spend a great deal of time in the dark, I live in a basement, you see with my Grandmother. Why I live here isn’t really important, personal and all that but being here in the dark my mind plays with me. I read a blog, sometimes I read them to my friend. She scares so easily and reading it like that makes it so much better. I can see the fear in her eyes on Skype and know that it’s real. Lately though every time I read a blog or a story like this the chill, I can feel it creeping through my body and it’s not good by any means. It makes me want to run. Run as fast as I can up the stairs and never look back.

This house can feel creepy. Lately I’ve been hearing what has to be footsteps above me, always just after I go to bed. It never happens at any other time. I lay awake in the dark, covers held tight to my body as if it was a shield. I lay awake in my secret terror remaining perfectly still until I eventually pass out. Waking up I realize I am still alive, still in my bed and nothing has changed. The warm light of the day keeps me safe, even though I claim to not like it so much sometimes I crave it. I used to crave it. Slenderman is such a terrible force of nature that in these stories, soon the light of the day offers no protection to the victims. No protection for me. Slenderman shows up in the woods, in the dark places and in the distance, like some twisted angel only I can see.

I know what the monster looks like. Everyone does. Tall, pale and faceless and Limbs that extend far past any human’s ever could, ending in terrible tendrils like that of a squid but some how far worse and not natural, not even of this world. Everything in my body tells me that it’s not real, but my brain is not convinced. Instead it can’t shake the thought, the desire for the monster to be real, am I sick in the head. A vicious kind of thought pattern is infecting me and there is little I can do. Eighteen years in this world and I have been infected by a special kind of fear.

Sometimes I think I see the thing out of the corner of my eye. Standing there in the trees, down the street or sometimes in the fog. I think that this thing is coming after me. I want it to come after me. So many others have been taken from this life in such a horrible way, at least this is what they want you to think. It is a strange thing to feel so much terror and desire at the same time. There has to be something wrong with me. I keep waiting that it’ll come for me.

The tradition of the monster is always the same. It always stalks you, drives you insane then it takes you away. It nearly never changes and this is why the monster is so popular. It is a simple and vicious cycle that can never end because the monster can never die. Ever be killed, defeated or even stood up to. Sometimes it takes people. Consumes them and makes them into something else, something not human. No one knows why, least of all me. So if the monster is coming for me. I expect it to come this way. I am mostly terrified everyday, but I do my best to hide it. I am pretty convincing when I come down to it.

Today is when my faith kicks in though. I have attracted the attention of something I really shouldn’t have. I can see the monster, I have invited, and it has come in. Three days ago my tattoos started to turn red and itchy. I thought it was because I scratched at them absentmindedly that this was taking place. Now it’s hard to know what happened first anymore. The tattoos are on my arms, once they showed a sign, a kind of rebellion against the world and a sense of pride. Now I have to hide them. They are not what they used to be. I don’t know what they used to be anymore. Every time I try to think about it my mind clouds over as if I had planned to get them.

My tattoos are shifting, changing. It burns constantly under my skin now. Infesting my body with the alien ink, or maybe it’s blood. I wanted the monster to come for me and now it has. Faith is my name, and my desire has been rewarded. The unexpected has began, the monster Slenderman, as he is called, yet I am sure it’s not it’s real name has come to me as well, like so many others before me. I just wish I would be able to make this into a blog. I don’t think anyone is going to hear my story. The monster is on my arms, his black tendrils are reaching longer everyday, reaching for my heart in terrible inches, burning like an infection, a sunburn on the inside of my skin. I can barely concentrate to write this anymore.

I wonder if this happened to anyone else, it’s funny the things you think of when you are the only one who knows you’re dying.