Every creak and groan of the house sent my head reeling with the possibilities of what the cause of the noise was. My eyes frantically darted from side to side to make sure that a known creature wouldn't pluck me from the bed I was in. My hands were numb, not from the cold but from me clenching them together tightly in an effort to ground myself.
The lack of light present casted shadows everywhere. These shadows seemed to morph into little figures but as soon as I would glance at them they would flee back to wherever they came from. I couldn't bring myself to get out of the bed. The fear of something lurking outside of the safety zone I had created nailed me to the bed.
I could feel my heart beating in its chest, it was thumping wildly. At one point I had mistaken it for footsteps; it was so loud. My eyes started to ache with how long I would go without blinking, I feared that if I blinked it would give whatever was out there just enough time to kill me in whatever gruesome way it had planned.
It felt like I was in a living hell, the constant feeling of not knowing what lurking in the darkness made me want to scream until my throat ached. My body's need for sleep would tug on my eyelids trying to get them to close but I wouldn't allow it. Every time I felt like I couldn't keep my eyes open I would squeeze my fingernails into the palm of my hand, the slight pain of it would allow me to stay awake for a little while longer until I would have to repeat the process.
The room was starting to lighten up, but only slightly. The sun must have been starting to climb up into the sky. I still couldn't make out anything in the room but I knew if I just hung on just a little longer I could finally relax. Suddenly I was ripped out of my thoughts when a figure appeared in the hallway. My body went rigid and my breathing stopped. This time even when I looked directly at it the figure didn't go away.
It paused for a second then turned its head towards my direction. My limbs turned into ice, what do I do, what do I do, I thought frantically. It walked towards me and stopped right as it reached the bed. My breathing stopped completely.
It reached its hand to me, all of the sudden my brain began to work again and I flung up from the bed and slapped away at the hand.
"Calm down!" The figure grunted, but I paid no mind to it, I was too busy trying to scramble away from it.
It grabbed my shoulder with a harsh grip. I started punching and hitting at it blindly, "Let me go!" I screeched at it.
"It's me, Masky!" It semi yelled.
I stopped struggling for a second and actually focused on who was standing in front of me. And it was who he said he was, it was Masky. I let my shoulders relax from the tense state I had them in. A mumbly "Oh," was all I said to him.
"Why the hell are you so jumpy, you..." His voice stopped, I glanced up at him. He was staring at me still, shit is he about to spaz on me again.
I shook him slightly, "Masky?" I called out.
"Have you been up all night like this,"
My eyebrows knitted together, what an odd question, I nodded my head.
"You didn't see anything did you?" He asked, a little fear seeped out from his voice.
"Kinda, I mean I don't think they were real. I think it was just my mind messing with me,"
"Shit," He mumbled, "Shit, shit shit," he got progressively louder. I was so confused with what he was so angry about. He ran his hands through his hair, bubbling something I couldn't hear. Then it hit me, the logs of the patients symptoms. This was one of the first symptoms they showed.
My stomach felt hollow with fear. No, this can't actually be happening, it couldn't. I was pulled out of my thoughts with a strong hand on my shoulders. I glanced up and met Masky's gaze, "Let's go to the kitchen and discuss this. I can brew us some coffee to drink as well," He said softly. He held out his hand and helped me climb out of bed.
He walked to the kitchen silently, the only noise now was our footsteps and the wind from the snowstorm outside. I sat down in the rookery chair and crossed my arms on the table then laid my head on top of them. I watched as he brewed the coffee in an old looking coffee maker but I wasn't complaining. I needed some energy after the sleepless night I had just endured.
I felt so exhausted, I didn't know how long I would be able to take this. Not to mention this was just only one night of this, god knows how many more hellish nights I'd have to face. A cup of coffee was placed in front of my eyes. A little cloud of steam was floating above it. I wrapped my hands around the steaming cup and let it warm my icey hands.
"So... I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea what the hell to do about all this. But if it's anything like I've experienced, I need you to be honest with me. Don't let something happen and not tell me about it, the last thing I need you doing is falling victim to your own mind. And I know I haven't been the nicest person to you but I don't want you to die because of me, ok?"
I didn't say anything at first, I was honestly really shocked about how straight forward he was about this and how he just admitted he was going through something as well. "Um... ok." I wasn't really a hundred percent on board with it but I'm sure I would grow into it, especially with the motivation that if I didn't I'd die.
I broke eye contact with Masky and took a sip of the scalding hot coffee. It burnt my tongue but it warmed my insides.
I placed the mug down, my eyes widened at what I saw on the mug. Little blood stains were smeared on the sides where I held it at. I glanced down at my palms and grimaced when I noticed that little crescent shaped marks were dotted all along my palm. It wasn't bleeding badly but it was still bleeding nothingless. I wondered where they even came from but then I remembered how I kept myself up at night, I would dig my nails into my palm.
"What's wrong?" Masky asked, "And why is there blood on the mug?" His voice was full of concern as he walked over to me.
"It's just scratch marks," I said
"Let me look," He held out his hand
I held out my hands and flipped them over so that he could examine them.
He took them gently and looked at them, letting out a little "Hm" as he did so. "Did you do this?" He asked
I nodded my head, I looked away as I did.
"...Why," He asked softly
I took in a deep breath "To keep myself from falling asleep," I took a quick glance at the masks holes but looked away almost immediately
He didn't say anything for a second, I wished he would take off that mask so I could tell what he was thinking but he never did. I just felt so in the dark about what he was going to say next.
"Let me clean them up," He turned away and grabbed a napkin. He soaked it in some hot water and walked back to me. He gently rubbed the napkin on my palm to stop the bleeding it was doing.
Suddenly the kitchen door opened, me and Masky both jumped at the striking noise. It was Hoodie, he was breathing fast, like he had just got done running.
"Are you alright?" Masky asked
"Yea, I just got scratched by Jeff," He said between breaths.
Who is Jeff?
"What the hell is he doing here," Masky groaned
"I'm not sure, he's nowhere near us. But I could keep a close eye on them tho. I'm not sure what he's up to this time,"
"Yea," Masky mumbled
"I'm gonna go clean this wound,"
"Alright," Hoodie then walked towards the bathroom
Once I heard the door close I turned to Masky "Who is Jeff,"
"A guy who is the definition of an egoistic maniac. But we won't have to worry about him, along as you're with me that is,"
I nodded my head, made sense.
"But back onto you seeing things, the figures. Could you describe them in any way," He asked carefully
"I mean, not really. They were just black blobs, I couldn't really make them out in anyway," I explained
He seemed to be glad at what I had said because he gave out of what seemed to be a sigh of relief. I looked back down at what he was doing to my hands. He had wrapped them in a thin layer of gauze.
"Ok, they're all bandaged up," He kinda paused for a second, "You know, I could leave the bathroom light on,"
I nodded my head, "That be nice," I took a sip of the coffee.
Masky took off his jacket and glanced at his bandaged shoulder. Oh yeah, I kinda forgot that he got hurt.
"You never told me what hurt you," I said,
"That's a story for another day,"
I glared at him, "Didn't you say we needed to be honest with each other?"
He gave off a sigh, "His name is Slenderman," He said quickly.
"And why would he attack you?" I pressed
He stayed silent for a moment, planning his next words, "I worked for him once, but I stopped and ran away,"
Of course, he won't go into detail about it. I nodded my head and didn't say anything. I'm guessing we'll both have to earn each other's trust. But now I was curious on how he even got to discuss things with that creature. And how did he become what he is now? There had to be some significant changes done to him for him to access the abilities he had now. Something definitely not normal, but what is it? Whatever it is he isn't willing to really discuss it openly so it must be something pretty harsh. Not to mention the time I took off his mask he wasn't too happy about it and wouldn't even face me.
And that stands out immensely, he was always so confident and smug but that was the one time he seemed to be almost scared. If I survived this madness shit finding out what happened to him would be my priority. If I survived. The thought of not making it out of this made me sick. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to get rid of that thought.
I opened back up my eyes and took another sip of the coffee. I needed to get my mind off of all of this death stuff. The crystals, I had almost forgotten about the crystals I had brought with me. I jumped up from the table and went straight to the drawer that had all of my stuff in it. I dug through it from second before I felt the brown paper bag. I grabbed it and pulled it out of the drawer. I admired it for a second before walking back to the kitchen to look at the gems.
As soon as I reentered the kitchen Masky asked me "What did you run off to do, and what's in the bag,"
I sat down at the kitchen table and casually pulled out the gems, "I forgot I had bought these crystals, I wanna put them in the house,"
He walked over to my side, "What ones did you get?"
"Only a few, citrine, amethyst, selenite, and the black tourmaline I have on this necklace,"
"You bought these when I was still stalking you, right?"
My eyes widened, "Um, Yea," I said a little hesitantly
He nodded his head, "Why don't we go place them around the house, it'll give us something to do"
"Sure," I agreed.
I clutched the gems and started off discussing on where to put them.