The faceless man I had been 'employed' by for the better portion of my teen-and-adulthood worked in strange ways.
In one moment, he could be there, standing before me, his words echoing in my mind. His degrading words, constant irate behavior, and ability to fully clear any thoughts of my own from my head and replace them with only the ones he wanted was draining.
Though, this time, it had been a bit more interesting than draining.
I was sitting against the wall adjacent Jeff's bloodied corpse, allowing my thoughts and tics to take full control of my mind and body. I was alone, desperately grabbing into a void of darkness for an ounce, even a single shred, or light to pull me back to reality. But what really was reality? It was exactly what I made it.
If I wanted to be Tobias Erin Rogers, husband to (Name) with a baby on the way, I could be. We were supposed to be at an appointment with a realtor to close in on a home for the two of us, the third on the way, in only a few minutes. We had been together since we were teenagers; she had rescued me from an assured death should I have went through with my original plan of ridding myself and my mother of the degenerate I had the displeasure of calling my father. Had I not told her, I surely would have died in the fire I planned to set in my childhood home.
Except, she didn't save me. She didn't even know me when I was a teenager. And I wasn't Tobias Erin Rogers.
My true identity was pulled to the front of my mind as well as my true, factual reality when ear-piercing static vibrated through the shell of my ear, down into the ear canal, and finally, dangerously rattled into my eardrums.
He was here, and he wasn't happy.
I could feel his eyeless stare fixed on me; the sound of him grew higher in pitch the longer he glared down at me. He knew I couldn't feel physical pain, but he had powers beyond physical tangibility. His need to cause me pain sunk deep into my skull, rewiring my brain in order to forcibly enable my nerves to receive it in full force. I could almost feel wires in my brain disconnecting and reattaching somewhere as he re-wired me in his strange, incomprehensible way.
You've dealt me a hand in the suit of disrespect, Tobias.
His temple-shattering noise trickled from deep within my eardrums into the nerves beneath my very skin; my body was engulfed in searing, red hot flames.
I had made my bed, and now, I had to lie in it. I was more than allowed to punish an associate if it was within bounds; murdering one with an axe over a woman I hadn't even had a conversation with definitely wasn't included within that right.
You allowed him to not only disrespect you for far too long, but myself as well. Why is one of my proxies not only allowing such blatant disregard for authority, but taking part in it himself?
Snaking its way from beneath my skin, it trailed its scorching path up into my veins and pulsed behind my eyes, pulsed from deep within my teeth, beginning to blacken its way into my fingertips.
"Make it fucking stop!"
A hand that was not my own harshly grabbed at my hair, making sure to grab more than a fistful as he used it as leverage to firmly thrust my head back into the wall. The awakened nerves throughout my body felt every bit of the hit.
But the great thing about not having to feel pain was that if by some chance, I did start to feel it, I could completely block it out.
My vision, tickled black around the edges, was littered with hundreds of tiny stars. Though they only shone down on me dimly, they shone nonetheless.
As I found myself staring into the universe above, I wondered what fate had been written for me, and how I had butchered it so badly. Was I really supposed to become what I had became? Was I really supposed to be a small-town teenager turned murderer by an interdimensional monster?
I had killed more families that I could count, not including my own. I had taken my very serious disabilities and turned them into my most prized possessions; if I couldn't be hurt, couldn't feel any of the pain that my victims had tried to inflict upon me, I couldn't be fucking stopped.
But now that I could feel it, and now that I was faced with these questions, I had to ponder who the monster really was. Slenderman had been born a monster, it wasn't something he ever had a choice in. I was a created monster; I had a choice, and made my decision dutifully.
If I knew then what I knew now, would I have chosen differently?
Your fellow proxies alerted me to your disloyalty. You already were on a very graciously-given probation period, and had decided to sabotage Jack's assignment instead of dutifully fulfilling your own? Can you handle nothing, Tobias?
There was not one molecule in my body left untouched by his atom-searing burn. Just when I had thought it was over, it started all over again. Every bone, muscle, and tendon was re-lit, forcing my limbs out in painful contortions as my body tried to extinguish itself of an unseeable flame.
You have been worthless since I saved your pathetic form from killing yourself in my woods that day, and you will die just as worthless; though perhaps even more pitiful than before.
And all at once, it was over. I waited for it to resume once more, but it never came.
Looking up at him, sniveling, blood pouring from deep inside my ears and from both nostrils, I let a sob escape.
Though his face was expressionless, his emotion showed through regardless. Our connections with him were strong and undeniable, for whatever reason, he had decided to give me a second chance.
You will rejoin the Marble Hornets starting immediately. Find the both of them within the hour, and should you fail, though you feel nothing, you will feel every second of the fate that awaits you. Do not let your arrogance precede you again, lest you wish to be as Jeffrey is.
Though his ways didn't always make sense, he never preached them to deaf ears.
--(Name) POV--
I stared at the laptop before me, disbelief and a twinge of anger swirling inside of me.
'Your transfer is complete! Thank you for doing business with Chartress Advisory! Transfer amount: $100,000.'
I had only typed ten thousand, I was completely sure of it. The company would be alerted to the transfer as it was done through the account of an employee who was known to be deceased. The location would be pin-pointed by police, and they'd probably send a SWAT team.
I let my head fall in my hands, a few tears of anger slipping down my cheeks. How badly I wished Jack had just taken the money in the beginning and had just offed me, as he was supposed to. Then again, it was quite a devastatingly beautiful thing to be in love with someone like Jack.
The long lengths I had went through to mentally to prepare myself for death by the hands of Jack had went completely out the window. My hand gingerly caressed the scars across my cheek; he had hurt me in the beginning. He had hurt me badly. But physical pain was preferrable to the pain of having to be without him.
Hand still grazing my cheek, I looked at the laptop.
I was hoping that by looking away from the insanely large amount of money illegally transferred into my bank account, I could pretend it wasn't actually real, but with the message still on the screen, it was hard to play make-believe.
Abruptly ripping my attentions away from the alarming message, my fingertip began to sear with raw, unbridled pain. Looking down at it, I saw nothing, but it felt as if a branding iron had been harshly pressed against my skin. The pain was so quick and fleeting; perhaps I was finally losing what little was left of my mind.
Jack had definitely taken his toll on me, and that much was obvious. For all the pain, suffering, and confusion he had put me through, he at least deserved to get his things looked through.
Standing from the couch, I eyed the door I knew to lead to his bedroom; a flush of dread ran through me as I debated whether I should make my way into it or not.
I knew what his diet consisted of, what would I do if I were to go exploring where I knew I shouldn't have been and discovered something terrifying? What if he stored his food in his bedroom? What if it wasn't a bedroom at all, but a lab where he dissected his victims?
And then, I decided. After all the pain, confusion, and absolute anguish that Jack had put me through, I at the very least deserved to know who I was going to be staying with a little better; that is, until the SWAT team would come ,of course , and would arrested me and take Jack for experimentation.
I hesitantly padded my way over to the door directly across from my own, and gave the knob an experimental twist. It was unlocked, to my surprise.
Placing my hand on the door, I gingerly opened it, hoping there was no stench of death behind it. Yet, nothing came but the scent of Jack himself. A rainy, gloomy, earthy smell that was only comparable to reading a book on a porch, nestled in the woods during a thunderstorm. Being around him was to be unnerved, unsettled, and unknowing of what his next move was to be; but it was also to be surrounded by the undeniable scent of the outdoors, to be captivated by his unnatural beauty, and to be enthralled by the touch of his lips on my own.
Jack had changed my life for the worst, but at the same time, for the best. Though I was still deciding which was stronger, both were there nonetheless.
Completely open now, the inside of his bedroom greeted me.
I had always assumed that he was scholarly due to his vocabulary, even though at times it could be quite colorful, so being greeted by a small bookshelf was, more or less, expected. Though, the shelf being full of encyclopedias regarding medical practice, and college textbooks in the same genre, was a little shocking. However, it did make sense; if he ate organs, he'd obviously have to know how to properly extract them.
The thought sent a small shiver down my spine as my mind forced me to face the inevitable; would he extract my organs one day? Had this 'relationship' between us been an elaborate plot on his end to gain my trust, and then slaughter me?
Though, if I was gullible enough to believe that someone of Jack's nature could harbor such feelings for me after years of being conditioned against that very thing, then perhaps I'd signed myself up for it.
I unceremoniously picked up one of the books from the shelf, hard-cover reading, 'Digestive Tract and Diseases'.
Thumbing through it, I found that nearly every page had been marked with multiple, different color sticky-notes; they were handwritten notes, the content of them being in regards to an upcoming exam and to make sure to remember the vocab in the chapter.
Had he been a college student? I remembered seeing Jack inside of a small room in one of the nightmares, and it had seemed that a second man also lived with him. Could it have been a dorm? Had the building really been a school, as I had seen?
Closing the book and putting it back in it's previous place on the shelf, I promptly made my way over to my still-open laptop.
I could disregard the alarming transfer message for the time being. I remembered trying to think of any time I may have seen his story on the news, and coming up with nothing, as I had never heard of anything so gruesome happening. As I typed into the search-bar, 'college fire, multiple dead', I found just what I was looking for.
And a little further into madness I descended.
--AHHHHH I'm excited for the next chapters, yall PLEASE REMEMBER THE FINGER BURNING
Also, a little clarification for this chapter; remember way back when Tim and Brian had told Slenderman about the planning that Toby had done? Well, the plan was actually carried out, as you can't get in trouble for planning something, but you can get in loads of trouble for actually carrying out your plan.
I'm so excited for these next chapters i cant even
And as always, if you're going to Meatball, do it Extravagantly.--