The paper was wrinkled as if someone had been clinging to it for their lives. Cecily spent a few moments examining the paper, feeling more anxious as each second passed.
A chilly breeze blew. Cecily shuddered and hugged herself, clinging to the paper with one hand. She then reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. She was relieved to see that she had a few bars of service. This meant that she wasn't as far away from town as she had feared; but more importantly, it meant that she could call for help.
She quickly dialed 911.
"911. What's your emergency?" said a woman's voice on the other side of the line.
"I'm lost. I don't know where I am or how I got here."
"What's your name?"
"Cecily Connar. Um..." she looked around at her surroundings, her mind spinning."My mother's name is Elizabeth Connar."
"How old are you, Cecily?"
"I'm sixteen."
"Okay Cecily, can you describe to me the area that you are in?"
"I'm in a forest. I think I may be near the park. I'm on some sort of trail."
"Can you see any other significant landmarks around you?"
"No, it's too dark. All I can see is trees."
"Alright. Cecily, I......you to stay calm......and-"
The woman's voice was drowned out by the loud, crackling sound of static.
"Hello? Hello? I can't here you," Cecily said, panic rising in her chest.
The static sound was cut short by a long, continuous beep. The call had been disconnected. She tried to dial 911 again but she was answered by the static sound. She hung up then desperately dialed her mother's number. Still, nothing but static.
Cecily hung up and wanted to throw her phone. She didn't know what to do. There were so many emotions clouding up her mind that her heart raced and she wanted to cry. She wanted to break down and sob, but no tears came.
She was lost. Stranded. She had nowhere to go. No plan. No hope. She was terrified.
She started to calm herself down, telling herself that panicking and crying wouldn't get her out of this situation. She looked around at the trees and the dirt trail before her. She figured that if there was a trail she couldn't be too far away from the town. And since she couldn't think of anything else to do, she started to follow the trail, using her phone as a light and pocketing the piece of paper with the odd drawing scratched on it.
As she continued walking down the path, she soon stumbled upon a truck and trailer. The truck was painted a pale blue with blotches of brown rust, and the small camper behind it was white. She walked around the truck and examined the camper, hoping to see if someone could be inside it. However, it looked abandoned. She walked around to the back of the camper and looked at the door. She was about to knock on the door then froze when she saw another page pinned to it. The page had the words "Leave Me Alone" written on them with a single tree hastily drawn on it.
Cecily stared at the paper, feeling mixed emotions of dread and confusion. She reached out and took the page. Almost instantly she heard a rustling of leaves behind her. She quickly spun around, scanning the dark forest for.....something. Whatever it was that made that sound.
The soft beam of light from her phone barely gave her any light to see by. She looked around, straining to see in the dark.
Nothing.
She stuffed the second page in her pocket and moved on.
As she followed the trail she soon came to a large clearing with a big, brick building. It was oddly shaped and looked like it was some sort of public restroom. There were no doors leading into it, and it appeared from the outside that there were no windows either. There was just a dark, empty, lonesome looking doorway leading to an even darker hallway. She came to the building, wondering if it was a good idea. She figured it wasn't but went inside anyway.
The walls were an ugly brown color, and in some places an unknown type of mold grew in the damp corners of the maze-like hallways. Cecily's footsteps clicked and clacked along the white tile floor. Cecily would glance up nervously at the cracks travelling across the ceiling, and wished that she hadn't gone in. However, she continued as if there was something she had come in here for. It was like something was calling her, and she had to find it. As she walked through the building she found it strange that there were no toilets or sinks or anything in it. It was like the building had no purpose and was there just to exist.
The further she traveled into the building, the more uneasy she felt, and she was just about to turn and go back outside when something caught her eye.
At one end of the hallway was another page taped to the wall.
Before Cecily had comprehended the page's appearance she had ran over to it and snatched it off the wall, like a hungry lion snatching food from the hands of a zoo keeper. She felt desperate to get her hands on the page. This one simply said "Don't Look...Or It Takes You."
She wondered what that meant and was turning to leave the bathroom. As she stuffed the page into her pocket, she looked up and saw the....thing from before.
The tall, faceless man was standing at the other end of the hallway, the top of its head barely grazing the ceiling.
It was blocking the way out.
It tilted its head to one side and stared at her. Her heart thumped in her throat, and without thinking she turned and ran from it, down through the dark hallways, not really knowing where she was going. She ran and ran, occasionally looking over her shoulder to find each time that he was getting closer and closer. She soon found another doorway leading outside, and as she was crossing the threshold she threw one last glance over her shoulder. He was only a few feet away from her, reaching out to her with one white, long hand. She squealed as he swiped at her and just missed the hood of her jacket. With a final burst of speed she turned the corner of the building and saw further ahead in the clearing an assortment of what appeared to be tanks. Thinking she could perhaps lose the thing--or at least slow it down--by running through those, she ran towards them.
She weaved and zig-zagged her way through the red and brown, rusted tanks, and tripped near one of them. She wasn't as graceful as she wished.
She panicked when she could hear light footsteps behind her, and she knew that the thing wasn't far behind. She slid her slender body as far under the nearby tank as she could fit, and held her breath.
She watched as a pair of black, polished shoes slowly stepped towards her tank, and stopped a few feet from her face. Her whole body tensed and she stared at the shoes. Go away, she thought. Please go away. He didn't leave. She started practically begging him in her mind to leave her alone--to not notice her barely squeezed under the tank. She watched as the owner of the well-polished shoes turned, the toes of the shoes now facing her. This is it, she thought to herself, I'm done for.
But then they disappeared.
Cecily blinked. Was he gone? If so, how did he disappear like that? Was it perhaps the same kind of magic--or whatever it was--that brought her to these woods?
She waited for a few moments to make sure he was really gone. Her body started to ache and she finally crawled out from under the tank.
He was gone.
She sighed with relief and leaned back on the tank, and as she leaned back she heard something crunch as if she stepped on a leaf.
She turned and saw that she had leaned back on yet another page. This one had the tall stick figure--that she had guessed resembled that thing that had chased her--surrounded by trees.
She stared at the page, feeling as if it were a sort of taunt. What did these pages mean? Why were they everywhere she went? Why did she feel like she needed to collect them? And how were they related to this thing that haunted Marley and was now haunting her?
Without realizing it, she reached one hand out and took the page, pocketing the fourth one she had collected.
****************
Her pockets were getting full. She had collected two more pages giving her a total of six. She had seen the tall man other times, but he had never gotten as close to her as he did when they were in the building. She had come to discover that if she just didn't look at him he would leave her alone, just like the third page she had collected had said: "Don't look or it takes you." Although as she thought about it, she didn't know what being "taken" meant, and she was sure she didn't want to know.
After she had collected the fourth page she had taken the path that lead east out of the clearing and was soon greeted by some large rocks that jutted out of the ground like small mountains, where she found another page that said "Can't Run". Then she traveled down the path to find some walls that seemed to form a cross, where, of course, she found another page. This one said, "Help Me" After she had found this she wondered who had drawn these pictures and what they could have been going through when they were drawing them. She knew the similarity between these pictures and the ones Marley was drawing, and knew that he must have been facing the same kind of thing the person who drew these pictures was going through.
As she continued, she grew less and less scared of the monster. After she had realized that all she needed to do was keep her eyes off of him she felt like he wasn't as much of a threat.
As she continued down the path she came across two rows of columns. She weaved through the columns, by now expecting to find a page, and she did. It was a picture of the thing standing next to a tree, and the word "Follows" was written vertically beside the picture. She took the page and then turned, and saw the man perched on top of one of the columns, crouched and watching her with his head tilted. She just turned and walked away, without giving him another glance.
Cecily walked down the path and finally came to a large cement tunnel. The path led straight into it, and it made her think of a mouth trying to lure her in and swallow her whole. And yet, she walked into it. The light from her phone seemed to be swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel. She walked through it, not even daring to turn back or look over her shoulder. She forced herself to take step after step, even though the further she went the more paranoid she felt. She felt like something was pulling her forward and giving her motivation.
Halfway through the tunnel, she found her eighth page.
As the ray of light from her phone passed over the page, she suddenly broke into a run towards it and snatched it off of the wall. As her fingers touched the paper and she took it in her hand, she felt a sense of relief and satisfaction. She let out a long sigh and hugged the page to her chest, not even caring to look at that one like she did with the others.
A cold hand with long fingers touched her shoulder. It was like a wave of iciness shot through her body as the hand touched her. She spun around and came face to face to the monster. Her heart jumped, but she did not start. Instead, she lunged at him, beating him with the eighth page clenched in her fist. He didn't flinch or seem hurt at all, but she didn't stop. She was out of her mind, rage and frustration clouding her thoughts and controlling her actions as she beat her fists against his chest and screamed at him.
Inky black tentacles shot out from his back. Two of them grabbed each of her wrists and two more grabbed each of her ankles. She was lifted into the air and her limbs were stretched so far that she couldn't move them. He lifted her up so that her head was inches from the ceiling of the tunnel, and she would have been eye-level to him if he had eyes.
Cecily knew what was going to happen next. He was going to pull on each of her limbs until they were ripped from her body. Or maybe he would break each of her limbs and finally break her neck. Or maybe he would drive his hands into her gut and force her to watch him pull out all of her organs and entrails. However, no matter how many terrible scenarios she thought of, she just stared into his face, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was scared.
He didn't do anything.
She waited with expectancy, and was actually growing more angry and even a little impatient.
"Well?" she finally said. "What are you waiting for? You've got me. Get it over with."
"Why do you not fear me, child?" he said, his face not moving. It almost sounded like his voice was echoing inside her head.
"I don't know. I just don't," she said.
There was a small shift in the monster's face, like an emotion formed, hidden in his nonexistent face. "You can hear me?"
"Of course I can," she said. "Why won't you just kill me already?"
The monster hesitated, then said, "You are intriguing. I've never seen a human like you before."
"Intriguing? What's so intriguing about me?"
"You can see me even when I am trying to be invisible to you. You can hear my thoughts and communicate with me through telepathy although I haven't presented the power to you. But the strangest thing I have recently discovered is that you can look into my face without your sanity draining and your very mind snapping like a twig"
"What does all of that mean?"
"I don't know. That is why you are so intriguing."
Something about how he had said that made Cecily feel like being "intriguing" to this thing wasn't a very good thing. "Is that why you're trying to capture me? You want to study me or something?"
The monster shook his head. "Not exactly. But I am curious."
Then he did something Cecily didn't expect him to: he put her down.
What shocked her even more was that she didn't try to run away or fight him. She stood before him, hr head tilted up, examining the blank space where his face should have been.
"If I'm so intriguing, why did you put me down? I could have run away from you and then you'd have to chase me down again."
"That's an interesting question. Why aren't you running?"
Cecily hesitated. "I don't know." She looked away from his face for a second, then looked back up at him. "Who are you, really?"
"I have many names. The Faceless One. The Dark King. The Tree Man. The Black Knight. The Slenderman."
"Which one of them is your real name?"
"None of them. They are just names given to me by stories and folklore. I can not tell you my real name."
"Why not?"
"I just can't."
They stood in silence for a few moments, then the monster said, "You are afraid. Not of me, but of this place. You want to go home. You are lost."
Cecily looked at him. "Well, of course I do. I mean, doesn't everyone want to go home after they get lost?"
"From what I can gather, although people I meet usually seem more concerned about me."
"I can't say I'm surprised."
"I can take you home."
Cecily was almost shocked by his statement. "Why would you do that?"
"Are you denying my help?"
"No! No, I'm just curious. I mean, so far all you've done is chase me around and try to kill the kid I'm supposed to be babysitting and scare the crap out of me, so it seems like a sudden change of heart."
The monster tilted his head to one side, as if he were confused. "Crap? I am unfamiliar with that term."
Cecily hesitated, then said, "Never mind. Forget I said that. The point is that from the way I've seen you act it doesn't seem like the kind of thing you would do."
"You may be right."
He then took a tight hold on her arm and Cecily found herself in the swirling, spinning abyss again. She clamped her jaw shut and looked down to see the world flying past many miles below her at a nearly inhuman speed. She quickly looked back up at the monster--or whatever he was. He looked fuzzy and disoriented, like a bad picture on a TV. She started to feel nausea rising in her stomach again and quickly squeezed her eyes shut.
Suddenly, the spinning sensation stopped and she could feel the hard ground beneath her feet again. Her head spun and she refused to open her eyes after he let go of her arm, afraid of what she would find. As he let go of her, she felt like a tree swaying in a strong wind, and suddenly started to fall backwards. She could feel two arms catch her from behind.
"You're alright."
The two arms that she guessed were the monster's stood her back up, and as she found her balance he let go of her again.
She finally opened her eyes, and saw that she was in her front yard.
She was home. He did bring her home.
She turned to say something to him, but he was gone.
"Cecily?"
Cecily turned back around and saw her mother peering out of the door, barely opened. Her hair was a mess and her eye make-up ran down her face in ugly, dark smudges.
"Mom?"
Her mother suddenly threw open the door and ran to her, throwing her arms around her. "Oh, Cecily! I thought something terrible happened to you. Are you alright? What happened? When did this happen? How did you make it back?"
Cecily was taken aback by her mother's reaction. This was incredibly unlike her. "Mom, I'm okay. I'm not hurt."
Cecily then realized that her mother was crying. She had not seen her mother cry since her brother's funeral.
"I was so scared. First you didn't come home on time, then I heard that Marley had called the police, and then I got a call from the police department saying that you were lost in the woods and the connection broke when they were on the phone with you and they couldn't contact you again."
"I'm sorry, Mom." She didn't know what else to say, or if she really had anything to be sorry for.
Her mother sniffed, let go of Cecily, and straightened herself up. "Well, we can talk about it in the morning. It's late and I need to call the police and let them know that you came back home, since they sent some people into the woods to look for you. You should go to bed. You must be exhausted."
Cecily surprisingly didn't feel all that tired, but she nodded and followed her mother back inside the house.
Cecily eventually walked upstairs into her room, and went to get ready for bed. As she went to take her jacket off, she realized that the pages she had collected from the woods were now gone.
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Hey guys. I know this was a really long chapter, so if you stuck with it long enough to reach the end, good for you! I also know that it took me a really long time to finish this chapter, and that was mostly because it was so long and I kept getting writers block and I was usually too busy to write, (it was the end of the first semester, after all!)
So thank you all for reading my story and please stay tuned for the next chapter!