Found

Are we hunters or are we runners? Are we chasing the White Whale or is it chasing us?

I have not seen him again, but I can feel something staring at me. Something moves its infinite gaze on me and I am trapped, held down and viewed with a cosmic microscope that only seems to magnify the futility of my mission.

After the appearance of Hunor, a servant of the Whale, we went on the run. We stopped updating, trying to hide our location, hide our presence, but we knew this would not work for long.

Yesterday, he appeared again to us. He attacked us. He injured us.

He hurt her. He laughed as he did. He laughed.

She is still alive. I brought her to a hospital - the stab wound could become infected if not treated. She needs to get better.

He laughed while he stabbed her.

Are we hunters or are we runners? Are chasing it or is it chasing us?

We were running, but it wasn't enough.

He laughed.

I am in the place you found us, Hunor. I am in the place where you laughed. Come find me. Come and fight. I will not run.

Come and fight.

I will not run.

So, a few days ago, we stopped at a gas station. We didn't need that much - just to fill up the tank and to get some snacks, maybe some music to keep us awake during the long nights of driving.


I asked Ahab to get the snacks and pick whatever music he wanted in the convenience store, while I filled up the tank (it is my car, after all). So I was alone when I saw him.


He was tall, six feet at least, with curly blond hair pulled back into a pony tail. He had this grin on him that made me uneasy.


He walked towards me and said, "Have you heard the tale of Nimrod?"


"I'm sorry?" I said. I didn't think he was talking to me at first.


"Nimrod the King," he said. "Nimrod the Hunter. Son of Cush, grandson of Noah, king of Shinar. Have you heard the tale of Nimrod?"


"I think your mistaking me for someone else," I said.


"The tale goes that Nimrod opposed God's power," the man said. "He wished to show how he was a greater god than God. So he commanded his followers to build a great tower, a tower that would reach the heavens. Needless to say, God took affront to this and knocked the tower down." He stepped forward, moving quicker than I expected.

"Please," I said, "I don't have any money."


"Nimrod survived though," the man said, "and fled to rule over other countries, where he still opposed God's power. They say his sons became the Huns and the Magyars, hunters and warriors. They say that Nimrod grew large and was a giant of the earth. They say he grew so powerful that God decided death was too good for him - that God's wrath would instead be to remove his name and his face, so that none would know him to be Nimrod and he would forever be alone."


I backed away, no certain that this wasn't just a crazy person or mugger. His eyes looked wild and I could see the scars on his face, probably from numerous fights.


I was lucky that Ahab saw us at this point. He rushed out of the convenience store and ran towards the man, intent on tackling him.


The man left and moved faster than I could see, slipping away before Ahab could touch him, leaving Ahab sprawling on the ground.


The man appeared on my left and said, "Some hunter you are! You wish to hunt the mighty Nimrod? You wish to find him and capture him and kill him, as if he was some animal?" He laughed. "Nimrod is more than you will ever be or know. And we are his sons."


He stepped backward and a hole appeared behind him, a hole in the fabric of the universe. I saw a dense thicket of trees with black leaves. "I am Hunor," the man said and stepped backwards into the black forest. "And we will see each other again, Captain Ahab." He smiled and then was gone, like he had never been there at all.


And that's how we met our first proxy.


I think I'm going to throw up.

Hunters

We hunt the white whale.

And now something hunts us.

It was only a matter of time.

More to come.

We're still on the move. I'm...not sure when we'll stop actually. I have to force him sometimes to pull over and get some sleep. He's driven by demons, I know, but he needs to rest at some point.


I'm still getting used to this whole 'that thing you thought could never exist actually does exist.' It's like if you heard stories of aliens all of your life and went "Pshaw, aliens don't exist." And then not only it turned out that aliens do exist, but that they are creepy assholes, too, well...okay, that analogy probably isn't good, but I'm sticking with it. 


Yes, that's right, I'm calling it: the Slender Man is a creepy asshole.

Moving

We are on the move on, on the trail of the white whale. Chr Queequeg is helping me now, searching through news reports and articles, searching for signs, from the blatant to the subtle, searching for the slight touch of the Slender Man.

She has insisted, however, that we each get a good night's rest. She has pretty much emptied her bank account in order to fund our mission, so we do not have to live out of her car. I...appreciate everything that she has done.

There's this song running through my head. It's by this English punk band called the Clash. It's called "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"


    Should I stay or should I go now?
    Should I stay or should I go now?
    If I go there will be trouble
    And if I stay it will be double.
    So come on and let me know.


Because that's what I'm feeling at the moment: I don't know whether I should stay with...well, I guess I have to call him Ahab now, since he was right. I don't know if I should stay with him and help him in any way I can...or if I should just rush back home and try to forget I ever saw the thing I saw and hope I'm not haunted by it.

Can I forgot?

Do I have a choice in the matter?

He's starting calling me "Queequeg" again, by the way. But I know it's not part of a delusion now -- it's just his way to stepping back into a role, hiding behind a wall. And perhaps that's the best thing to do. Erect a wall and hope it's good enough to hide from the Slender Man.

Or, as Ahab wants, go on the offensive. Find these "proxies" that work for it (why would anyone willingly do that, I have no idea), track them, try to find some way to rid the world of it.

It's a goal that is probably impossible. Yet he seems determined to go ahead with it.

So: should I stay or should I go?


I'm a doctor. I got into psychiatry to help people. If I just left him...what help would that do?

Sigh. Stay it is then.

Queeqeg signing out.

Bringing her back

She's talking again. I managed to snap her out of her previous state. I would thank God, if I believe in one.

How did I do it?

Well, I went to the sink and turned on the hot water. When it was so hot that it was steaming, I led Christine in the bathroom and placed her hand under the faucet. She automatically pulled back, like I thought she would. She  still had all of her reflexes.

Then I placed my own hand under the faucet and let the scalding water hit my skin. I suppress the urge to pull my hand away and instead pushed through the pain and left my hand under the flow of water.

After a minute, Christine grabbed my hand and pulled it back for me. Pain for her resulted in automatic reflexes - but pain for me? That pushed through her psyche, that made her pay attention.

All she ever wanted to do was help me and I used that to bring her back.

After that, she started talking, a few words at a time until she just couldn't stop. She asked me so many questions -- questions about what the Slender Man did to my family, what happened when I first saw him, what I knew about him. I admit, it was a little exhausting, but I tried to answer each question.

She knows now. She believes.

And now the question becomes: will she help me?

Better

She slowly gets better. She moves and walks and sits by herself. But her eyes are still blank, staring at whatever is in front of them. I fear exposure to the slender bastard has...damaged her mind too much.

I am going to try something. I hope that it will work.

Watching the Walls

We are still at the motel. I am hoping Christine will say something to me, but she stares at the walls, as if they were the only interesting things. I tried getting her to go to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she started whimpering and then screaming. So I stayed up with her and watched her as she watched the walls.

Did I do this to her? Did my pursuit of my white whale make her see him, too? If so, I wish I had never come here. I wish I had never found him again.

Failure

I am a failure. I tried and yet could not kill him. I was frozen as he stared at me.

And then she came. Queequeg Christine. She walked towards us and saw him. She saw him and everything that he was.

And he grew. His body seemed to shudder and he grew a few inches taller and his arms grew longer and he turned to look at her. And I knew that he was going to kill her, just as he killed my wife and children. He was going to take everything away from me again.

And so I ran. I ran and grabbed Christine and I pulled her away, I pulled her away as I felt him coming nearer. I felt the world darken, the shadows lengthen.

The world fell away and there was only us and him.

I shielded her with my body. I shouted my foulest curses at him. And I pulled the hunting knife I had bought, its blade sharp, and I put it to my throat.

I do not know why that stopped him. Perhaps he didn't want to see me dead. Perhaps he has plans for me. And if he does, perhaps I should just kill myself now.

But I can't. Because Queequeg Christine has seen him now. She believes now. And I can't help her if I'm dead.



And a part of me

(only a part)

is relieved that

I am not crazy.

He was mad yesterday because the Slender Man didn't appear like was supposed to. I think the fantasy is finally failing. We walked up and down throughout Monrovia Canyon Park and nothing happened.


He insisted that we go back today. I said that was fine, mainly because the park turned out to be very beautiful and it wasn't too hot, so it might actually be a nice day.


He's been going on and off the trail now for a while. I keep insisting that he stay on the track, but he wants to wander off. I'm dictating this on my phone right now and look, there he goes again, walking off the trail, in his own world.


What's that? It looks like he's talking to somebody. Weird that they would be walking in the park while wearing a business suit, but who am I to judge?


Man, he's tall. He's tall and pale. He's tall and pale and wearing a business suit. God, he must think he's the slender man oh god I have to stop him from hurting anybody.


hey hey
stop
dont
what are you


oh god oh god
its you
its you


he was right
oh god help me

In the city

He's here. I know it. I can feel it.

I don't know how I know, I just do. It...seems like all the shadows are darker. Like everything is sharper, as if someone turned up the contrast on the world. It didn't happen like this last time, but maybe that's because I hadn't met him yet, hadn't known about him.

And now I do.

He's here. I know it.

Alright, here we go. Next destination: Monrovia Canyon Park.

He actually called me 'Christine' today. Even though it was probably reflexive, it's still a good sign. It shows that somewhere deep down, he knows this is a delusion. 


He was back to calling me 'Queequeg' this evening though. He became excited because he said he found something online. Some park where the Slender Man was sighted. It's on Monrovia, California.


If it proves to him that there is no Slender Man, I will buy the plane tickets myself.

He's getting more agitated, more angry. This hunt isn't going like it's 'supposed to.' He's not finding the evidence he thinks he should.


Because there isn't any evidence, I want to tell him. There isn't any Slender Man out there.


But I can't tell him. I have to let him figure it out on his own.

More breadcrumbs

Everywhere I go, that's what I find. Just more breadcrumbs. Nothing substantial, nothing tangible. Sometimes there aren't even any witnesses - there's just a feeling in the air, an electricity that I know comes from him.

A game of hide-and-seek turns bad. A group of teens, out for the summer, stumble upon a killing ground. A woman sees a tall man with a pale face standing in her lawn, but when she opens the door, he's gone.

Even the kidnappings are random. Some children are taken, some children escape. Why? Is there something special about the ones left behind?

And why kidnap some and kill others?

Why kill at all?

Why kill my family, you bastard?

WHY?

Breadcrumbs

In the newspaper today:

"Two children missing. [...] One witness claims to have seen a 'tall stranger in a suit' standing near the playground. Authorities are still investigating."

He's been here.

We're in a motel now. He's been 'tracking' the Slender Man, checking for sightings online and so on. I want to tell him it's not real, that it's all in his mind. But ripping him away from this fantasy right now would just damage him more. He needs something to hold on to. I guess that means sleeping in motel rooms for the foreseeable future.

Queequeg

I guess I'm Ahab's first mate. Or harpooner, since I refused to be called "Starbuck." (I didn't want a name that was associated with mocha lattes and Battlestar Galactica, thank you very much.) Anyway, he called me Queequeg and I guess I've gotten used to the name by now.

I'm not here for his revenge, though. I'm here because...

Okay, this might sound silly, but a long time ago I read Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote. And then I saw this old movie called They Might Be Giants (and yes, it was where the band got its name from). It's basically Don Quixote in a modern setting: the main character, instead of believing himself a knight, thinks that he's Sherlock Holmes. And his psychiatrist, he believes, is Watson and they go out on an adventure.

The name comes from a quote from Quixote, about tilting towards windmills and how Quixote thought that they were giants. Watson points out that they were just windmills, but Sherlock says, "Ah, but they might be giants!"

...well, guess what? Yeah, that's right, I'm Ahab's psychiatrist. Queequeg the shrink.

And he thinks he's Ahab, but he's actually Don Quixote. Thinking that this "slender man" killed his family. It's...very sad, actually.

Anyway, I'm here because I want to keep him out of trouble. I'm here to stop him from doing any harm to anybody. To stop him from killing anybody. I know I should put him in a psychiatric clinic, but I just can't, not after the fire that actually killed his family.

So here I am: first mate to Captain Ahab. Tilting at windmills. Which might be slender men.

Call Me Ahab

That's not my real name, of course. But it's the name I have taken. It's the name I need right now. Because I'm after a white whale and I won't stop until it's dead or I am.

It didn't take my leg. It took something even more precious: it took my family. And it left me with nothing, nothing in my heart except hate.

So here I am. On a mission: to kill that slender son of a bitch once and for all.