Blake wandered through the woods, flashlight in hand. Despite how morbid the situation was, this was exactly the opportunity she had been waiting for. She couldn't help but be excited. The mysterious disappearances, the haunted Renaissance festival, the witnessing of a strange, tall figure, all of it could be her big break as a paranormal investigator. She shivered, not from the cold, but from the anticipation.
She reflected on what got her to this point. All of the trials she had endured: her mother kicking her out of their home in New York City, the abrupt ending of her relationship that had resulted from that, and even the disappearance of her father many years ago. All of it had led her... here. In an unfamiliar woods, smack-dab in the middle of Michigan, just below the thumb of the state's mitten. It had all been a whirlwind, and now she found herself in the middle of nowhere. What town was she staying in again? What was it called? Vasswood? Vassville..? Oh, right. Vassar. She felt strangely humble at this moment. She was a nobody, and yet fate had brought her all the way here.
The leaves crunched underneath her feet with every step she took. She frowned. If all these leaves kept doing what they were doing, she'd scare away the ghosts before they had the chance to scare her. Not that she'd ever actually get scared. No, for some reason, she'd always had a muted fear response. That didn't mean the fear wasn't there, it was just... very quiet, to the point where she wouldn't even recognize it until she stopped to think about it. She'd always been told that she was very brave, but bravery just wasn't the right word. She wasn't doing something despite fear, she always did things for a lack of fear. Fearlessness might have been a better word, but even fearlessness implied some kind of mental strength. Still, for better or for worse, Blake was always drawn to things that were scary. Maybe it was because she thought that one of these days, something would really and truly scare her. Or perhaps it was simply because fear had given way to fascination. Either way, the paranormal and macabre were something she'd dedicated her life to.
Blake's quiet contemplation was interrupted by the snap of a stick behind her. She whipped around and pointed her flashlight toward the source of the noise, grinning like a child. The grin quickly disappeared, however, when she saw there was nothing there but a... wait, is that a gray fox? Hold on... if her 2-year middle school obsession with zoology had taught her anything, it was that gray foxes were only found in the North American West. They certainly weren't found in the forests in between the endless cornfields of rural Michigan! She took a small step closer, but the fox ran away before she could do anything. She stood there, flabbergasted. A million thoughts ran through her head. Was it a shapeshifting creature of Native American legend..? No, it didn't look deformed. Plus, the kind of shapeshifting creature that originated near the Great Lakes didn't look at all like the shapeshifting creature of legend that more people are familiar with. No, the local legend here was that this creature looked mostly humanoid. (Of course, neither creature's name can be spoken or written about, hence the reason they aren't specified here).
So, she ruled out that particular creature. Or maybe it wasn't paranormal at all. Maybe she had just discovered the first instance of a gray fox in the Midwest, in which case, she needed to let the local wildlife authorities know as soon as she could. However, she wasn't given much time to think about that, because suddenly, she heard a terrible ringing in her ears. A splitting headache overtook her, and she couldn't tell if she had cried out in pain or not. Static filled her vision, and nausea made her head spin. She would have been able to guess that this was probably a Slenderman attack, but her brain was so scrambled from the pain that she just couldn't think, so she did the one thing that should never be done during such an attack- she looked up. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was a strange, faceless man in what appeared to be a business suit.