Monday, January 20, 2014

I almost didn’t believe it when I saw the lobby. We’d been rushing through mazelike office floors for what must have been days, without any end in sight. And then, suddenly, we were there. The door out was right in front of us.

The room still had the remains of the massacre that had occurred in it, with mutilated, rotting bodies all over the floor. Through the glass doors we could see the swamp. Part of me had been secretly hoping that those doors would lead back home, but it looked like we’d have longer to go before we reached that.

After waiting to see if anything in the lobby was going to try killing us, Arkady began searching the bodies. He got several knives for himself (of course,) but then handed Sky and me pistols.

A: “Just in case. Try not to accidentally shoot someone in the face.”

D: “Why aren’t you taking one?”

A: “Experience has shown that I have a difficult time hitting targets right in front of me. We don’t know how good you two will be, so you at least have the potential of being slightly competent compared to me.”

I can’t say I liked the feeling of that gun in my hand. I’ve done a lot to avoid having to get involved in a fight. I don’t know if I could kill someone, even if I had to.

Arkady paused at the front doors and peered outside.

A: “Sky, what can we expect out there?”

S: “I don’t know. I don’t feel any pressure or headaches….”

A: “Which could mean that it’s completely safe out there. But somehow I doubt that.” *He double checked the knife he had drawn.* “I’ll go first. Stick close to me.”

He carefully pushed the door open, and stepped out. Sky and I followed just a moment later. Based on what I’d seen through the glass, we should have stepped into a pool of dark water, surrounded by dead black trees. Instead, all around us was nothing. We were standing in a white void. Even the  building we’d come out of was gone.

Scenery started appearing like it was being drawn on a blank paper. First the outlines appeared, and then color was slowly added in. Instead of a swamp, we were standing on a beach shore. The sand was bleached white, and made a sickly crunching sound when we walked through it. The ocean’s water was a deep shade of black, and the waves made no sound as they rolled onto the beach. A light fog hung over the water, making it impossible to see what was beyond. It was raining here as well, with fat black drops falling onto our faces, but there was no lightning. When I looked at the beach more closely, it became clear that it wasn’t made of sand. A human skull was partially buried by my foot, and part of a ribcage wasn’t far from that. It was a beach made of powdered bones.

A short distance away from us was a gray wooden pier, with a small rowboat tied to it. It looked like the only way to keep going forward, so we started walking toward it. Halfway there, a wall of fire appeared in front of us. And behind us, Slender Man appeared. The fire spread around us, trapping us in a circle with the Slender Man.

Sky pulled her gun and fired at him. The recoil nearly made her drop the gun, and I doubt the bullet hit. Even if it had, it didn’t seem to have any effect. Slender Man’s head twitched, and her gun vanished. She looked like she was about to try running at him, so I grabbed her shoulder before I could. Arkady seemed to have the same thought, because he grabbed her other shoulder at the same time. He’d also taken the time to pick up one of the skulls in the beach, and held it up.

A: “To be, or not to be….” *He crushed the skull between his fingers, and let the pieces fall back into the sand.* “Not to be.” *He pushed the two of us back.* “I suggest you both use this as an opportunity to make a daring escape.”

D: “Escape? There’s fire all around us!”

A: “Yeah that sounds like your problem, not mine. I’m about to go charging into glorious battle.”

S: “What? You can’t do that! You’ll die!”

A: “Oh, most probably!” *He was grinning like a maniac.* “But that’s what makes it so exciting! Death will always come; no need to waste time fearing it. Glory lies over the corpse of your enemy! Never shrink from any attack or tactic that may harm them, no matter the cost! Either utterly destroy them, or die spitting in their eye!” *He patted Sky on the head, and then looked at me.* “Do at least make an attempt to get away; I’d hate to let something as stupid as what I’m about to do go to waste. If I somehow come back from this as well, I will be sorely disappointed if I find out that both of you just stood here the entire time without doing anything.”

He gave us a lazy salute, and then started walking toward Slender Man. It started growing more tentacles from its back as he got closer, but that didn’t seem to daunt him.

A: “Hey, Slendy! You know how long I’ve been waiting for this? You and me, one on one, winner take all! The day I finally get to cut off your head and make an umbrella out of your skin! You’d better make peace with your death pretty quick, because soon you’ll be nothing but a black smear on the ground!” *The flames roared even higher, with enough heat that it felt like I was being cooked in there. Arkady didn’t flinch; he looked right in his element, surrounded by that fire.* “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!” *He stopped, and threw out his arms.* “Behold! Look upon the face of your enemy, Slender Man! I am lightning! I am chaos!”

And then he ran forward. Slender Man’s tentacles lashed forward, and it was clear that Arkady had no way to avoid them. So he didn’t even try to. The tentacles struck him, knocking him down. But he got back up, and began running again, shouting a joyous battle cry. A tentacle impaled him through his side, and another hit his arm so hard I heard the bone snap, but he kept going. When one of his legs was torn off, he continued by crawling, laughing as he bled on the sand. A foot away from Slender Man, a tentacle wrapped around his neck and lifted him up. His laughs became gasps for air as it slowly crushed him. Slender Man spread open its arms and began to pull Arkady towards it, as if preparing to embrace him. As he came close, Arkady lunged forward with his knife, right at Slender Man’s chest.

All the fires went out. Everyone, even Arkady, was frozen as we looked at the blade stabbed into Slender Man’s suit. There was no blood or visible wound, but the knife had unmistakably found its mark.

A: “Ha….” *His voice was so soft I barely heard it.* “Some ‘Invincible God’ you turned out to be….”

Those were his last words before the tentacle around his neck tore his head off. Slender Man threw the body onto the ground, and more tentacles began ripping it to pieces. Sky screamed and began to run at them, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the boat. We had the chance to escape, and we had to take it.

I’ll never know if we would have been able to make it, because Sky grabbed my gun and pulled out of my grip. She had a wild look in her eyes, with a smile that was disturbingly similar to the one Arkady had right before he was decapitated.

D: “Come on! We just need to make it to the boat!”

S: “No. No, that won’t work. He’ll follow me anyways. He’ll always follow me. He never will let me go.” *She laughed, and looked at the pistol cradled in her hands.* “If I’m such an important treasure to him, how badly would it hurt him if his treasure was destroyed?”

*It took a moment, but then I realized what Sky was planning to do.*

D: “No. Sky, please, no. We can escape. We can go on the run. You don’t have to do this.”

*I took a few steps towards her, but stopped when she pointed the gun at her head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Slender Man had stopped mutilating Arkady, and was slowly walking toward us.*

S: “I can hurt him. After everything he’s done to me, I can hurt him back.”

D: “So? We have a chance to live! We can stay on the run! I’ll never let Slender Man catch you!”

S: “You’ve seen Runners. That’s not living. Just let me do this. It’s the only thing I can do.”

D: “I’m not leaving without you!”

*Suddenly Slender Man appeared right behind Sky. The smile vanished from her face, and tears appeared in her eyes.*

S: “Please go.” *She whispered.* “I don’t want him to take you too…”

There’s no point in writing what I said next. I kept pleading with Sky, begging her to drop the gun and run. Nothing I said worked. She turned around to face Slender Man, keeping the gun aimed at her head. Slender Man watched her, his head tilted slightly to the side.

S: “H-h-hey, Slendy….” *Her voice was weak at first, but grew stronger.* “Fuck… Fuck you!”

Then she pulled trigger.

I’ve never felt as helpless as the moment I saw her lifeless body falling onto the sand. I couldn’t believe she was gone. Some part of me kept saying that it had to be another illusion, even if I knew that wasn’t true.

For a while, Slender Man didn’t do anything but stare at her body, as if waiting for something. Two of his tentacles wrapped around her and pulled her upright. When they let go, she predictably fell back to the ground. He tried that three more times, like he somehow thought the result would change. He nudged her body, but it still just laid there.

The rain began to pour down even harder, and thunder roared as lightning flashed all around. The black sea became vicious, and the waves slammed into the shore hard enough to send bones flying. Slender Man lifted a tentacle into the air, and then slammed it into the ground. He did that over and over, as his whole body twisted and writhed. Other tentacles lashed all around at random, until one hit me, knocking me into the water. I tried swimming up, but the sea had grown too chaotic, and I was pulled further down.

The next thing I remember, I was waking up in an emergency room with nurses around me. They were talking to each other, but I couldn’t understand anything they said. It took a few moments of confusion before someone started speaking to me in English. I’d been found nearly drowned in the Elbe River, near Dresden. Somehow, I’d wound up in Germany. According to the date on the calendars here, it’s been about eight months since I went inside that skyscraper. To me, it only felt like two, maybe three weeks, at most.

Thankfully my bag was still with me, and I think my laptop’s got enough for one last post before all that water damage i’s taken blows it. I expect they’re planning to release me soon, but I don’t think that’s really going to matter. Since the moment I woke up, I’ve been seeing the Slender Man. He was far down a hallway outside the door at first, but he’s steadily been getting closer every time I look away or blink. I don’t think he’s happy about how things turned out, and I’m the only survivor left for him to take out his anger on.

I’m not like Arkady or Sky. I don’t have it in me for any final acts of defiance. All I can do is lie here and wait for it all to end.

This is going to be my last post. I don’t want to end this with me crying for help. I’ll leave with at least some composure left. Well, goodbye everyone. I just wish things could have turned out differently.

Friday, January 17, 2014

I almost feel like I should take back all those things I said about the building trying to kill us as we climbed up it. Compared to what we’ve been going through on the way down, those were just some playful jabs.

Every branch and root we pass lashes out at us, and the water around us has grown ice cold. There have been places where the ground collapses away into a bottomless void. In some floors the wind grew so strong it would shatter the windows and threaten to pull us outside. Every room is filled with illusions that try to torment us. We can’t even stop to rest, because whenever we stay in one place for too long, Slender Man appears. Whenever I suddenly feel a splitting pain in my head, I know it’s time for us to run before his tentacles reach us.

During one of those brief breaks, Sky asked Arkady the question I had been wondering about for a while.

S: “Why did you decide to help us?”

A: *He shrugged.* “It amused me to do so. You’ll find it much easier to keep up with me one you accept that most of my decision making process boils down to choosing whatever is most entertaining for me at a given moment.”

S: “But what about your plan to lure out Slender Man by killing me?”

A: “Boring. Not interested anymore. Not when I can foil his plans to an even greater extent just by helping you stay away from him.”

*At this point, I entered the conversation.*

D: “I can’t say I’m comfortable being with someone who’s made it so clear he’s only helping us because it’s fun. Especially given how easily it would probably be for you to go back to thinking murdering us would be just as entertaining for yourself.”

A: “Aw, you’re not comfortable? My heart weeps for you. Besides, I doubt I’ll find any reason to kill the two of you now.”

D: “Somehow I have difficulty believing that.”

A: “Nah, you just gotta learn to trust more. I wasn’t lying when I said the two of you have become significantly more interesting as of late. You actually appear to have grown something of a spine. And Sky’s begun a wonderful phase of teenage rebellion.

*Sky perked up.*

S: “You used my name.”

A: “… Of course I did. That’s what you’re called.”

S: “You used to just call me ‘the kid’ or ‘the girl.’ You almost never used my name before.”

A: *Arkady stared at her for a few moments.* “Huh. Fancy that. Well, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are beginning a brand new adventure, filled to the brim with bloodshed! Hopefully other people’s bloodshed, although I accept the exciting possibility of some of our own bloodshed being thrown in there as well!”

*Sky laughed, but I couldn’t find it too funny.*

D: “I still don’t trust you. But you’re right. I don’t have a choice. So I’ll go along. But I’m keeping my eye on you.”

A: *He gave a mocking bow.* “Fair enough! I promise that should I ever decide to betray you, I will make sure to provide you plenty of forewarning. Now Sky, lead us onward!”

*Sky jumped in surprise at the order.*

S: “Lead? B-but I don’t….”

A: “You are the best qualified for noticing whatever traps await us, and I have full confidence in your abilities to guide us to safety. Just make sure to warn me if you see Slendy in the way. I get the first punch at him. Then you can kick him in the shins while I’ve got him distracted, or something.”

*Sky giggled again, and then started walking ahead. I hung back for a moment to talk to Arkady.*

D: “I think that was the closest you’ve ever come to giving genuine positive reinforcement.”

A: “And that’s probably the closest you’ve ever come to actually saying something nice to me. Maybe one day we’ll discover how to actually be cordial with one another.”

D: “Why are you letting her lead? Really?”

A: “Are the reasons I gave her not good enough? She really is the best person to be putting in front, given she’s the only one of us who seems to have any ability to predict what’s coming to kill us next.”

D: “Taking the sensible approach seems a little weird for you, to be honest.”

A: “Ha! Yes, probably. Maybe I’m just curious where her path is going to lead. Metaphorically, that is. She’s gone through quite a bit, and yet she’s managed to pull herself back out of despair into something productive. I want to see what kind of little warrior she turns into.”

D: “Coming from you, that type of obsession is really creepy.”

A: *He smirked.* “And look at you! Making hurtful remarks at me. There was a time you were so cowed by the fear of me that you wouldn’t dare risk incurring my murderous wrath.”

D: “Maybe I realized what a harmless braggart you are.”

A: “See! There it is again! I love it! That’s what this adventure has been missing. Snark. Used to be, I couldn’t have an amazing idea without Setoth telling me how stupid it was and belittling my glory with sarcasm. Ah, those were the days….”

Arkady began staring off, clearly no longer paying attention to me. I moved closer to Sky so I could keep an eye on her while I thought about what he had said. It’s true, we have changed. Maybe even for the better. When we were first trapped in this building, all I could think about was trying to get out so I could return to my old life. But now, I don’t think I’d be content going back to how things used to be. I feel like I can actually change my life now. Maybe things will get better now. But first, we have to make it out alive.

Monday, January 13, 2014

I’m back. For real. I remember now.

It was at dinner with Raychel. The meal had gone normally enough. Jack and I had worked hard putting it together, and most of the conversation with Raychel and her husband went without any problems. I’m not sure what it was that triggered it. We’d been talking about something trivial. Probably some television show. Raychel made a joke about it, and when I looked at her, I suddenly remembered her death. That day I found her in my room, not breathing. She’d been one of the first people I’d gone to seeing Slender Man.

The memory shot through my head like a bullet. I looked away to try and forget the image, but that made my eyes land on Jack. And that made more memories come back. I’d never married Jack. He’d been torn to pieces and left on a tree after coming to visit me. He’d been worried about how much I’d been avoiding him. I’d never even gotten to say goodbye. I’d just shouted at him to leave because it was too dangerous.

More memories came back to me, clashing with what I was seeing. The colors started to drain away from my house, leaving it all black and white. But it wasn’t my house. I’ve never owned a house. It was my parent’s old home. Why had I thought it was mine?

Without a word to anyone, I got up from the table and ran outside. Arkady was standing on the sidewalk, fiddling with some bottles and a lighter. Since my recorder didn’t pick up anything out there, I’m having to rely on Arkady’s self-proclaimed “astoundingly perfect memory” for all the dialogue in this post. Hopefully he doesn’t change too much.

D: “What the hell is going on?”

A: “Aw, don’t tell me you remembered on your own! I was just about to start killing people!”

D: “No, no jokes right now, seriously what is going on?”

A: “It looks like a labyrinth. Or whatever it is they call it these days. Really weird dimension stuff meant to screw with our heads. Poor Slendy’s gotta be getting deserpate if he’s dropping this on us.”

D: “How do we escape?”

A: “In my experience? Break the rules. Do the opposite of what he expects you to do. Mental stuff like this only gets to you if you play along. Which is why I’m about to toss a Molotov into that house there.”

And he proceeded to do exactly that. After throwing the bottle through the window, the fire spread unnaturally fast. The red flames consumed the whole building, and I heard screams coming from inside. When I heard that, I started to run back, but Arkady grabbed my arm.

A: “It’s not real. There aren’t any real people in there. Don’t let it get to you.”

I tried to calm myself down, telling myself that Arkady was right, it was all an illusion. As I kept repeating that to myself, the screams died away, and the color left the fire, leaving it monochrome as well. Then it grew blurry, like a scene fading away, until the mass of gray colors refocused into a different image. Trees appeared around us, living trees, not the twisted ones from the swamp. There was a small creek nearby, and I could hear birds singing around us. The whole setting was beautiful, and I paused to just appreciate the seeming peace around us. Until I felt Arkady’s hand squeezing my arm.

A: “It’s not real. Just keep reminding yourself of that.”

The colors faded away from this forest as well, and the sounds became dimmer, leaving it all dull and lifeless.

A: “It probably shouldn’t be impossible for you to get out now that you’re figuring this place out. I’m going to stay here for a while and try to find the girl, though.”

D: “I’m not leaving until I’ve gotten Sky either.”

A: “Excellent. We just need to keep moving then. This place is one of my memories, so it shouldn’t be too hard to break out of….”

I don’t know how long we traveled through the labyrinth. I saw a lot of different things in there. Old memories mixed with new ones, reflections of what had been my daily life, dreams and nightmares brought to life. As much as I hate to say it, I’m glad that Arkady was with me. There were several times I would have been lost in the illusions without his presence acting as a reminder of where I was.

Some of the things I saw seemed based off Arkady’s experiences as well. The cities of Phoenix and Austin blended together at times, and I found myself watching firsthand the events that I’d read about in Smiting the Gods. I must grudgingly admit that the blog’s description of events is not as exaggerated as I had expected, at least compared to how Arkady remembers. Although I noticed he left out how much pain medication he was taking when he wrote things down.

Eventually, things that neither of us remembered started to bleed into the environments. Places we’d never been to, people we’d never met. I didn’t understand it at first, and our progress slowed considerably, since Arkady had a much harder time figuring out the key to breaking the scene when the labyrinth no longer seemed to be focusing on us. When we came across a memory with a much younger Sky in it, everything became clear. It was in a forest again, but very different from the rocky, shrub filled forests of Arkady’s memories. The trees were a lot taller and more lush, more like something you would find up north. I realized where we were when I saw a small girl running by us. She looked exactly like how I would have imagined a younger Sky. She was laughing, and occasionally looking over her shoulder. Behind her was the Slender Man.

A jolt of fear went through me, but it passed when I realized that he was just part of the memory. He was watching Sky as she ran around him and talked about playing games. He didn’t react to her, just watched.

The scene changed again, and we were inside a kitchen. Slender Man had a man and a women in his tentacles, and was slowly disemboweling them. I saw Sky trying to hide under the kitchen table, with her eyes closed and her hands covering her ears. The scene changed again, and we were inside another room. The place looked almost abandoned, with the paint peeling from the walls and the wooden floor falling apart. Sky was lying in an old bed in the corner, her head barely peeking out from the sheets. Slender Man stepped out from the room’s shadows, and a familiar scene played out. He held her down with his tentacles, and stared at her with his blank face. And for a moment, I felt what Sky had felt then. It was like having the top of your skull torn off, and then having every thought, memory, and emotion ripped out of your brain to be carefully examined before being haphazardly jammed back in. It was like being made completely vulnerable, and having every bit of that vulnerability put underneath a microscope for him to examine. But the connection was two ways. And for a horrible second, I could feel the Slender Man.

I don’t know if I have the vocabulary to describe it. There was nothing in there that resembled any human thought or experience. Every sensation was completely alien, all completely beyond my understanding. There were a few feelings that were like faint reflections of the human world, but even they couldn’t be understood amongst the chaos of incomprehensibility.

My brain simply couldn’t take it. I blacked out. When I woke up, I was lying on a cold floor, with vomit covering part of my face. Arkady wasn’t far away, leaning against a wall for support. His face was completely white, and he was violently shaking. I’ve never seen him so affected by something before. It took both of us a while to collect ourselves and look around the room. The floor was hard concrete, with raggedy old dolls strewn across it. The walls had several crayon drawings on them, most depicting Slender Man in some way. Sky was sitting on a wooden chair in the very center of the room, staring at nothing. She was the only thing in there with any color; everything else was the same monochrome I’d gotten used to. This time, she was real.

I ran to her and grabbed her hand. Her face turned toward me, but her eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything.

D: “Sky! Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”

S: “… He’ll always come for me. I can’t get away. He always comes back.”

D: “It’s okay. We’re here. We’re going to get you out.”

S: “No!” *She pushed me away, almost hard enough to knock me over.* “I can’t leave. He’ll just take me back. I can’t get away.”

A: “Just leave her.” *Arkady was picking up the dolls off the ground and examining them.* “If she’s not willing to get out, then there’s no point in us carrying her.”

*Sky started shaking her head, as if the thought of staying scared her as much as leaving. I glared at Arkady, but he ignored me.*

D: “Don’t worry. We won’t leave without you. But you need to get up and come with us if you want to escape.”

*Sky grabbed my hand with both of hers, and looked like she wanted to say something, but remained quiet. That quiet was disrupted by a sudden bang; apparently Arkady had decided to thrown down one of the dolls and stomp on its face.*

A: “Slendy will come after you if you run? So what? If he chases you, then you fight him. Fight him in any way you can. You stay out of his reach. You thwart his plans. You destroy his goals. What’s the worst that could happen? If he catches you, you just end up back here where you started. If he kills you, you’re probably better off than this torture. No matter what happens, you’re better off than staying here. The only reason you’d want to stick around is because of fear, and that’s a dumb reason to not try anything.” *He bent down so his face was level with Sky’s.* “If you’re not even capable of trying, then you will never achieve victory. You’d be better off just letting yourself die.” *He started walking away.* “Well, whatever you pick, I’m leaving.”

D: *I chose to ignore Arkady’s attempts at motivation.* “Sky, I’m going to stay with you. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. So please, get up. We’ll get out of here together.”

She let go of my hand, and for a moment, seemed like she wasn’t going to leave that chair. Then, she slowly started to stand up. As she did, the room the room we were in began to fade away. When she was standing fully upright, the illusion vanished entirely, and we were back inside the swamp filled tower. We’d made it out.

Sky immediately hugged me as hard as her small arms could. When she let go, she walked up to Arkady, who was still standing several feet back. She stared him down, and then spoke with a conviction that almost managed to hide the shaking in her voice.

S: “I’m not going to lose. I-I’m going to get out. And I won’t stop running. He won’t catch me. He’ll chase me forever, but he’ll never get me back.”

*A manic smile grew across Sky’s face as she spoke, which was matched by the one that appeared on Arkady.*

A: “Now there’s some spirit! And now we go onwards to the battlefields!”

He put his hand on her shoulder, and at the moment they touched, the entire building screamed. For a moment I was blinded by lightning flashing just inches from the windows, and the room began to shake. Arkady grabbed my arm before I could fall, and then threw me forward, shouting at us to run. I did, following Sky’s lead as we went for the door, back onto the stairs.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Stalker

I know I said I wouldn’t do another rant post, especially so soon after that last one, but I have to. I promise I’ll make this up to everyone. Maybe with a week’s worth of posting nothing but silly memes.

It looks like I’ve got a stalker now. He’s a really creepy guy; he’s dressed like a homeless person, and he’s got all these scars on his face. And whenever I see him, he’s always smirking at me. At first I thought it was just a weird coincidence that I kept seeing him, but when I got home from work, he was waiting across the street. Before anyone panics, I already called the police. He was gone before they arrived, but I hope they’ll take care of it all soon.

To end this on a brighter note, Raychel and her husband are coming over for later this week. Maybe that will help take my mind off of this.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Kitties!

I said I'd have a regular post today, so here it is. A few pictures of adorable kittens I've found on the internet.




Monday, January 6, 2014

Rant

Hey there, followers. I hope you all had a better day than me.

Nothing funny or interesting for this blog today; I’m using it to vent. I hope this will just be a one-time thing, and I can get back to posting fun content soon.

It feels like all our customers got together and agreed that today would be the day to call in and complain. I was called a bitch by four different people on the phone today, and got shouted at by three more. And then my boss came in to give us a speech about how he’s been receiving complaints about our customer service. He didn’t mention me by name, but he made it clear that he was talking about me. I swear, it feels like I have the worst job I could imagine.

I did get some cheering up when I came home, and Jack had already set up dinner for me. I’m really lucky to have him.

But enough complaining. Tomorrow, I’ll have a real post for everyone.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Taking that break might have been a bad idea. While we were resting, Slender Man suddenly appeared in the room. It was only there for a moment, too quick for any of us to react. Then it vanished into darkness. An impenetrable blackness spread through the room, swallowing everything. Sky got up and ran when she saw it, but as she did the darkness appeared on the other side of the room, enveloping her. I heard Arkady swear, and he jumped in after her, vanishing as well.

They were both gone so quick, I almost missed it. Suddenly, I was alone. And the only reason the darkness that’s surrounding me hasn’t consumed me as well is because of the light from my laptop screen. And that’s getting dimmer by the second.

I don’t know what happened to the other two. From Sky’s reaction, it couldn’t’ be good. I wish I could go after her, but I don’t know what will happen if that darkness takes me. I’m just trying to hold it off for as long as I can now….