—Amanda
"B-b-b-but I'm scared…"
"C'mon it'll be funnn" The voice of a little girl could be heard, they were at a modern looking house, playing the new PS6. It was a hit horror game.
Click Click
"KYAAAAAAA"
"PFFFT—AHAHAHAHA. Amanda it's just a game, why are you such a scaredy cat~?"
"Scaredy cat~ Scaredy cat~ Amanda's such a scaredy cat~"
At the time, there was only a single thought inside my head. I wanted to be strong. Strong enough that I wouldn't be scared of anything ever again.
—
"W-w-w-w-where am I??" Once second I was with the team, the next I was all alone. The fog seemed alive no—It definitely was. I could feel it breathing to my neck, it felt very. very. Disgusting. I'm someone who goes to the gym a lot.
There's always times where sweat would be everywhere after an intense workout, and hey that sweat? it's hard work. It's prove you pushed your body to be better, but this? what I currently feel? The fog itself felt like being crushed against socks soaked with sweat everywhere
Flip Flip Flip
4 pages were with me—In the Slenderman game, the more pages you have the angrier he gets and the more he chases you, that's because you're alone. It was fine before hand because we were moving together but now—I'm alone.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZT
The static came from everywhere and nowhere. Not the radio—I'd lost that in the blackout. This was different. This was inside my head. Like television static slowly pressing against the inside of my skull, soft and relentless and growing louder with every breath I took.
He knows where I am.
He knows I have the pages.
He knows I'm scared.
The fog shifted. Not the way fog normally shifts—drifting, dispersing. It was deliberate. Purposeful. The gray tendrils parted like curtains being drawn, and at the far end of the corridor, maybe thirty meters away, a shape resolved itself from the nothing.
Tall. Dark. Faceless.
I didn't look directly. I knew the rule. I'd played the game enough times—been forced to play it enough times—to know that looking directly was death. But I could see him in the corner of my eye. Standing perfectly still. Waiting.
Don't acknowledge it. Don't fear it. Don't—
Step.
Yet my body didn't listen
Shiver
I took one step back. Just one. My foot made a sound against the floor—a soft scuff of rubber on tile that seemed to echo forever in the muffled quiet of the fog. The shape didn't move. But the static got louder.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
"Hngh…" I pressed my free hand against my temple. The pages crumpled slightly in my grip. No. Don't ruin them. Don't—
Scaredy cat~ Scaredy cat~ Amanda's such a scaredy cat~
Out of no where I could hear their voices. My 'friends'. at least I thought they were The PS6. The horror game they made me play because they liked hearing me scream. I'd hated it. I'd hated every second of it
The jump scares, the helplessness, the way my heart would pound so hard I thought it might burst. But I'd played anyway. Because they asked. Because I wanted them to like me. Because I thought if I just did what they wanted, we'd become even closer
They never stopped.
And now what was just a game is my reality—I was living the game. The real version. No pause button. No quitting half way Just me and the fog and the faceless thing at the end of the hallway that fed on the exact fear I'd never been able to control.
BZZZZZZZZZZT
Louder. Closer. I blinked—just a reflex, just a fraction of a second—and when my eyes opened, the shape was ten meters closer. He moved. I didn't see him move but he moved—
My legs were stiff. I knew this feeling. The same feeling when I saw my long life nemesis, Water. The pages. Four pages. If I dropped them, would he stop? If I threw them at him and ran, would he let me go?
No. You know the game. Dropping the pages doesn't save you.
Move Amanda Move. MOVE
But my body wouldn't listen.
MOVE.
The shape was closer now. Fifteen meters. The static had spread from my ears to my eyes—the edges of my vision were going fuzzy, pixelated, I could feel something pressing at the back of my mind.
Not words. Not quite. Just the shape of words. And then I realized.
He's not just hunting me.
He's inside my head.
Thud
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
"Hngh—" My head. **IthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIthurtsIt—██ ██ ███ ███ ██ ██ ███ ██████████████████ ████████████████████ ██████
"You good kid?" A voice. A voice I recognized, my mind it was ████████. My thoughts still ██████.
Scaredy cat~ Scaredy cat~
Groan
"Tsk."
"██████" What was I saying? I couldn't tell anymore. My head was still ██████*.*
—Randy
Tsk. Where is that kid, my thoughts as ran and ran through the confusing corridors without a single shred of care for my safety, for as long as I don't fear it. it'll be fine. And it didn't take long for me to find her.
"Tsk." I looked at the kid. She was frozen. Static in her eyes. Pages crumpled in her grip. Muttering something about scaredy cats and friends who weren't friends. The fog was thick around her thicker than it had been around anyone else.
"You good kid?" I said receiving no reply—Tsk. Without hesitation, I tapped her cheeks trying to break her from whatever thing was going on inside her head, she was muttering weird things that I couldn't really understand.
"Grandpa-?" And then out of no where those words came out from her mouth once more. I remembered that time when we were at the Leader's place, she said it once and then ran like a she was in World War II or something.
…
BZZZT
I could hear the static, the fog made me feel like I was stuck in the trenches, if it was already bad for me, how does it feel for her? I didn't know didn't need to know.
"Alright," I said. "Let's get you back on your feet. We'll find the others."
I took the pages from her hands. She didn't resist. Her grip was still tight, but it loosened when I touched her fingers—like her body knew, even if her mind was somewhere else, that she didn't have to carry this alone anymore.
The static spiked. The fog thickened. Somewhere behind me, I could feel it.
BZZZZZZZZT
But I just ignored it.
—
"Can you walk?" After what felt like 5 minutes of me supporting her she could finally walk on her own
"I—I think so." Her voice was small. Shaky. But there. The static in her eyes had dimmed a little. Not gone. But manageable.
"Good. Stay close. Don't look at it. Don't think about it."
"Is that—is that possible? Not thinking about it?"
"No." I started walking. "Do it anyway."
Step Step Step
We moved together. Slowly. The fog was thick enough that I could barely see three meters ahead, but I knew these corridors. Even wrong, even twisted, the basic layout it was still there. The cafeteria was east. The quarters were north.
We were somewhere in the maintenance wing—I could tell by the pipes running along the ceiling, the ones that carried coolant to the containment cells. Amanda walked beside me. Her breathing was uneven, but her legs were steady.
Every few steps she'd glance at me—checking I was still there. I pretended not to notice on it. If it helped her stay calm, she could glance all she wanted. The pages. Four of them. I'd shoved them into my jacket pocket without looking at what was written on them.
Didn't matter. They were pages. They were part of the set. What was written on them was probably the same kind of thing as the others—warnings, scribbles, the last words of people who didn't make it.
"Old Man?"
"What."
"Why did you come back for me?"
Tsk. Kids these days, always asking questions.
"You're on my team."
"That's—that's it?"
"What else would there be?" I looked at her straight. She didn't answer. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shoulders straighten. Just a little. Just enough.
We kept walking. The static was still there—a low hum at the edge of my hearing—but it wasn't getting closer. The shape was watching. Waiting for any cracks it could use. The corridor curved left. I knew this curve.
It led toward the research wing—the old labs, the ones they'd closed down after the budget cuts. Nobody used them anymore. Nobody except—
Step Step Step
Fast footsteps. Panicked. The sound of someone who didn't know the rules.
"Tsk."
Amanda tensed. "What is it?"
"Someone's coming. Someone scared." I stopped walking. Positioned myself between Amanda and the sound. "Stay behind me."
STEP STEP STEP
A figure burst out of the fog. A woman. Mid-twenties. Korean. Wearing a researcher's lab coat over a rumpled shirt. Her eyes were wide, her breathing ragged, her tablet clutched in one hand with a screen that was cracked and dark.
She was running blind. Didn't see us. Didn't see anything except the fog and the static and whatever was chasing her.
"DOWN." I grabbed her collar and yanked. Hard. She hit the floor as something swung through the space where her head had been—something that wasn't the shape, something else. A tendril? A branch? I didn't look long enough to find out.
"Tsk. Researchers. Always freezing at the wrong moment."
She stared up at me. Her mouth was moving but no words came out. Her tablet slipped from her fingers and clattered on the floor. I pulled her to her feet with one hand. She weighed nothing. These kids. They spent all their time behind desks and forgot what it felt like to move.
"You're—"
"No time"
"Can you run?" I asked, the researcher lad looked at me mouth agape before saying
"I can't feel my legs."
I looked at Amanda. Amanda looked at me.
"The big girl will carry you," I said, as Amanda came forward
She lifted the researcher like she was picking up a bag of groceries. I'd seen her carry heavier. I'd seen her carry a mulcher on her shoulder and ask where to put it. The researcher stared at her, then at me, then at the fog behind us.
"The thing—" the researcher started.
"It's not after you right now." I said it calmly. Matter-of-factly.
I turned to face the fog. The shape was there. Tall. Dark. Faceless.
"Still not afraid of you," I said. Quiet. Almost conversational.
Then I turned my back on it and walked toward the cafeteria.
Behind me, Amanda followed. The researcher in her arms. The pages in my pocket. Four down. Three to go. The team was scattered. The facility was dying. And the thing in the fog was patient. But I'm more patient.