Worse

It's been nine days now since Valerie has slept at all.

I've been watching her. Talking to her all the time and asking begging her to sleep. Nothing works. Nothing ever... goddamn works. I've... tried to get her to take pharmacy shit to help her sleep. She refused to take it at first... but then I actually did get some into her. I was relieved. I thought she'd sleep finally, but... it didn't work. She didn't sleep. She just looked more tired...  like, even less responsive than usual, but she still won't goddamn SLEEP, not really.

And then this happens.

We were on the road again cause... well, I felt the need to move. I was talking to her. Basically making chit-chat with absolutely nothing cause otherwise I'd lose my mind... and then, out of the blue, she starts singing. SINGING for the love of shit... she... hasn't said anything for... what? Over a month? She cringes and winces at even little fucking jingles on TV... and now she's... singing?

I just... I pulled over the car and grabbed Doubletake's camcorder from the trunk. And I watch her, and my hands are shaking because what the hell. What the fucking hell?

Does anyone have any idea what this is? At all? I'm running on empty here, guys. I can't... think anymore.

I can't lose her. I can't. If... if I could trade places with her, I would. In a heartbeat. If it would help her, I'd goddamn do it. So please. Tell me one of you guys has an idea, any idea. Tell me you noticed something I missed. Somebody tell me they speak whatever fucking gibberish Val spewed on that fucking video! Anything!

Please.

Guys... I need advice here. Please.

Valerie isn't sleeping.

I didn't really notice it at first, because it usually takes her longer to fall asleep than me,  but... there's no denying it now. Not only are her eyes open LONG after I've turned in for the night, but when I wake up, she's already staring out the window, or standing in front of the mirror, or some other highly worrying non-behavior. Twice I've jolted awake because she was up and moving around. So last night I stayed up the entire night and watched her, and she never once even laid down, let alone shut her eyes for any measurable length of time.

Our schedule is as screwed to hell as most Runners, but before at least I could be sure she'd take care of herself and sleep a couple hours every night! Now she's just awake all the damn time, and if she sits still for longer than twenty minutes she gets up and goes to some other area of the room, and if we're in the car at the time, she'll rap her knuckles against the window a single time. Only once. And then back to zoning.

I don't know how long this has been going on, but if I had to guess... I'd say since Sunday.

Ever since that damn message on her blog... she hasn't slept.

I know she fucking wrote it too. It was her. I don't know what the hell is going ON in her head! She still doesn't respond to me but she'll type out a section from some story onto Blogger? WHY? What's the goddamn relevance? I don't... I don't understand it. I went and had a shower. I come back and my laptop is on, sitting in front of her. "Post Published" on the screen. I just... I don't get it.

God I've BEGGED her to talk to me. When that post came up I thought maybe she was coming back, but... nothing. She wouldn't even look at me, wouldn't look at anything, just like always. I've pleaded with her to sleep. Just that... whatever the fuck she's thinking... to STOP IT and just goddamn SLEEP.

All she gives me is a blank stare back... only with bloodshot eyes... and bags that just keep getting heavier and heavier... Fuck, how long can a person LAST without sleeping? A week? Less?

I'm PAST getting worried. I'm terrified. I've been using every trick I know to try to make her drowsy, but none of it works.

Please, someone help me. Someone make sense of this. I'll try anything at this point...

Yeah, it's still me.

Look... I know you guys don't like Michelle. I know that... and you seem to trust ME even less. At least, by reading around, I've started to figure out why. More than just Michelle's view...

So, here it is: I don't know who it was that attacked Valerie in her hotel room. I don't know who used my name as theirs, okay? I don't know. I know about... you-know-who and I know about the agents. I know what they did to Michelle... and I really tried to help her at the time. I really tried. And I failed. But I'm trying again. I'm not giving up here. Please. I can't handle this on my own. I need you as much as she does right now.

The stupid thing is... if this was a possession, I'd know what to do. I've dealt with those kinds of things before but this...? This I don't have a clue. I'm working blind... and Michelle deserves better than that. I know a lot of you don't think so, but she does. We never really hit it off friend-wise with each other, and now I'm blaming myself for a lot of this shit. If I had paid attention - if I had KNOWN her a bit better - maybe I would have seen... something... something to stop this before...

God, before what? Before she set the walls up to begin with that, try as I may, I can't get past? Before she was bombarded as a kid by spirits looking for a laugh? Before she got involved with... with... you-know-who? Before she broke? Before the barn...?

...I can still hear the sounds of the cows... screaming in my head as they... burned up...

I've been doing my part to help with keeping the Veil intact for years... and THAT is what gives me nightmares? Cattle? Kinda funny, eh? Wish I felt like laughing.

You know... maybe the lot of you would think differently if Michelle had posted a "draft" she started on here months ago. The title is "leftrightstraightahead." It reads like one continuous journal entry... and some of the topics are just... well, if nothing else, it's honesty. I'll give you some quotes. I don't have right to do it but... it's only a small betrayal, right? I'm just trying to make you guys SEE. The first one is the very first paragraph.

"I don't remember. Why don't... why don't I remember coming back into the house? I went outside to see Him and then I just... what CAN I remember? I remember... my hands. Shaking. Shaking so bad. My head was pounding, but after I opened the door did I... what the hell did He do to me? Why did he take my necklace? WHY?! Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck this... this is WRONG GODDAMMIT. WHY AREN'T I AFRAID OF HIM?!?!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!?" 

"can't listen to my ipod anymore. everything on it reminds me of Him... I... I cantt deal with it. He won't leave me alone. never alone. never alone. never. even when... when He's not... here. NotThere. doesn't matter. He's... inside. I feel it. All the time. He never leaves. never... never leaves... goddammit i want it GONE i can't deal with this. i... i have to protect Tanya and Hailey i can't FEEL LIKE THIS FEEL LIKE HIM FEEL IT GODDAMMIT JSUT GO PLESELETMEGOIDONTNEEDYOUDONTWANTYOUJUSTGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!!!"

"I sleep more now than I have in months. Valerie is happy about it. She's... relieved. I see it in her eyes. She thinks I'm doing so much better. I smile when she mentions it. Laugh a bit. Make a joke. My old thing, of course. It hurts my chest to not tell her why but... she has enough to worry about, doesn't she? There's enough weight on her shoulders... how can I add more? How could I possibly...? I'm... I'm supposed to help her. Protect her. Even from... me. How could I possibly tell her... that I sleep better now because I don't... Run from Him anymore in my nightmares... I merely... I merely walk to His side in my dreams.

Then... I wake up... and I can't look my best friend in the eye for fear of breaking into tears cause I see as plain as day how much she trusts me..."

"Vals' alsep and I'm tryuing my best not to screma god it hurts. it hurts so damn much but i can't fucking DAMMIT god please i can't let her know. it's getting worse but i cant let her know can't let her see can't blog can't worry her can't let her trust break SHE TRUSTS ME GODDAMMIT why can't I live up to that??? it shouldn't be this hard it shouldn't be the Eyes the Eyes god they make it hurt worse WHO THE HELL ARE YOU??? You're not HIM not HIM not HIM SO WHO ARE YOU please god... i... i never believed in a god. i just... can't, my brain won't let me. I've trie dto think. Tried to believe. God... I could use the crutch right now. Please, God, help me hide it. Help me hide this. Alll of this..."

"I don't know what hurts more. Thinking of all the reasons I have to HATE HIM... or... knowing that... I really don't..."

Sincerely,
Christian

This is Christian

Okay, here's a long shot, but... guys, I need help here. Seriously, there's something wrong with Michelle. I'm in WAY over my head here and I don't know who to turn to anymore. My friends can only keep her from hurting anyone else or herself for so long. We try to be gentle but she just... My God, it's like she's possessed. I'm not even kidding! There's a look in her eye and it's just... it sends a chill right through me. It's like... she doesn't recognize me. Like she doesn't recognize ANYTHING. We all went to SCHOOL together for the love of mutt and she just... she's just so... different. She... she killed that police officer at the station. I... I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't...

God, help her.

Someone help her, because I can't seem to get through to her. I've tried. I've tried... everything. I even sat with my arm around her shoulders - just trying to give some form of comfort...

The way she acted, you would think I'd been trying to... to...

...God, did someone...? I... I didn't even think about it before just now. She'd always had a personal space thing going but I never thought of why. That maybe she had... oh, God, no. Please, God, she's been through enough, hasn't she...? Please, don't let that be in her mind too...

Do... do any of you know? Is it buried in this blog somewhere? Please, has she mentioned ANYTHING to ANY of you that could help? I need to know what I'm dealing with here. I know... I know about the murderers... but I don't believe she did them. The police do. They told me they were going to help her if they found her. They told me THEY WOULD HELP!! NOT LOCK HER AWAY! NOT CHARGE HER WITH... with... any of this. She couldn't, but... she killed that officer...

God, I am so confused.

I read the last post on here. Like... I don't even know. Is this drugs or something? Can they do this to someone? All this is in her head. All of it. I got her RELEASED on BAIL for crying out loud! She's the one that pulled the knife and then there was just... so much blood... God, how could someone just take a life like that? She didn't even flinch. She didn't.....

Please help me help her. I only got onto her blog by sort of... tricking her... and I feel terrible about it. She screamed to use a computer. This is the second time. The first time I let her write that... thing. This time I took it. This time I'm grabbing what seems to be her lifeline as my last rope: You guys. This place. This blog.

It means a lot to her. Tell me you can help? Anyone?

Sincerely,
Christian

Heroes

I've never rooted for the hero. Ever.

It has never mattered whether it's a comic, a manga, a novel, a tv show, an anime, a movie... it's always been the villain who I wanted to see rise above all the rest. Hell, even in video games I preferred the "evil" characters over the "good" ones you were supposed to be playing. Good ol' Pokemon, for example. Oh, yes, I'm going there for a just a sec~ I had all the old school games for the Nintendo Black and White GameBoy and the original GameBoy Colour..... and I would have given my eye teeth to be able to join Team Rocket.

Why?

The answer is always the same.

"Good" always got on my nerves. Too judgemental. Too hypocritical. Too optimistic. Too idealist. Too shallow-thinking. Too well-liked.

"Evil" on the other hand... was usually the underdog in terms of popularity; The characters usually had rather out-of-the-box thinking; They could make a choice when proposed with one - not waste time and energy chasing the impossible; They had accepted long ago that the world is a harsh place and friendship and rainbows aren't going to protect you from the crap that'll get thrown your way; They had more interesting backgrounds... and, when they hadn't been given such, you could MAKE interesting backgrounds that would explain why they are the way they are. In any case, it always proved to be a very amusing ride to "get to know them."

I find myself fascinated with Slender Man, personally. Annoyed and pissed to hell, yes, but still rather fascinated. One tall mystery after another and, I don't care what the hell the rest of you say, He's goddamn smart. As in Redlight-level of smart. Why do you think the Second in Command has to be as brilliant a mastermind as what he is? It's because his BOSS is just as bad. I dare you all: Mock Him. Zeke did it and nearly died - saved by... Kiera? I think? Hard to keep things straight nowadays.... anyway, I did it by going out to see Him that night I posted that message of WTF, and... yeah, well, I wouldn't classify that as "going well." If the rest of you really think He's such a fool...... then test it. The Black King awaits. Why not? Afraid to die a few months earlier than planned~? Ha.

And now we're back into the curse of the Three Sages. Do you know what the true definition of insanity is? It's doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. Core Theory DOES HAVE PROMISE, but it's failed TWICE. I swear, if it were up to me, Hakurei would not be involved at all. The other two... well, don't really care, to be honest. They can do what they want.

But... Three Sages... where is the darling Hero? Still MIA?

I've noticed around the blogs.... that so many of you seem to want to play that Hero role. I suppose we could blame the Elephant Man and Core Theory for practically breeding this mentality, but it would have been there anyway. After all, Slender Man is the ultimate archnemesis, yes? And the Proxies prancing around like the typical useless army of idiots that they are... well, that just seals the deal, hm? Zero is the most obvious example of this little trend, tied with dear ol' Robert. Zeke has now decided it's up to HIM and HIM alone - he was badass until that point. Seriously, age makes a difference here, Zeke? Really? Reach was always willing to throw himself at the enemy with no plan once or ever in order to buy time for someone else to get away - admirable, but certainly has that flavour of Hero, hn? Sage (now a name and a Title) does his thing to save the world, astral plane or not. Then there's Kay and Hakurei... heh... banishing the madness one tainted mind at a time, eh, guys? Love ya, Hakurei, but it still has that tone of "Save The Day," yes?

What I can't understand for the life of me... is why?

Why play the Hero?

You'll only die sooner.

You'll only have it harder.

You'll only cause more grief to those around you.

Ever hear the phrase: "The squeaky wheel gets the grease"? Well, in this case, it's "the one who makes the most trouble gets to be the most gory Christmas decoration ever."

And then of course there are some of you seem to think that it's "Heroes" - as in we all are. Insert a groan here, please and thank you. Seriously. We are ALL the Heroes? Someones been watching too much Disney. BELIEVE IN THE MAGIC OF FRIENDSHIP~!!! I can see it now: Rainbows will be Slender Man's bindings and Fuzzy Kittens will lick Him to death! Such a glorious victory for mankind!

...I think I just scarred my own blog.

Slender Man will slaughter you and, frankly, it would ease the headache caused by reading that level of dribble.

No, there is only one Hero. One person who the Community follows and cares for more than anyone else. One person who will face Slender Man and die. One person who will cause a wave through the Community so strong that could very well wield enough anger and conviction to finally defeat Him - if only by sealing, if not death - and stop the cycle. One person. That's it. Who is that One? Fuck if I know. I don't really like anyone so it's hard for me to say. Spin a bottle?

Don't read me wrong here: I'm not claiming a damn thing.

I'm no Hero. Not even close. Nor do I want to be. Hell, I don't want any title at all.

If I was a Hero... or wanted to be one... I would have never let Him take her today. But I did. I watched and did nothing. Hell, I was somewhat relieved. After all, He had been after Hailey. Rebecca (Becky) just became... convenient.

Lil' Becky is/was the kid of Tanya's neighbour who lives beneath her part of the duplex. The girl is/was about ten - red hair, freckles, green eyes, a bit tall for her age. I've only seen her a handful of times beforehand and, really, I didn't pay much attention to her existence when I had. Kind enough girl, I guess. Like I've said in past posts: I don't like kids. If I can ignore them, I do.

Anyway, like I've said before - I'm attempting to make catnaps my norm. I've had a few people freak so far because they thought I said I WAS going to stop sleeping (suicide watch?) but I guess I'm going to blame THAT on me not being very choosy with my wording at 5am after running through that marathon in my head yet again. People need to stop taking things so literally. Just because I WANT to do something doesn't mean I actually will. I've WANTED to do a lot of things in my life. Most of which you don't want to hear about, but some of the less intense fantasies include but are not limited to stabbing a pencil into one of my old teacher's eye and then driving their head into a wall to drive it right back into the brain. The expression of pain, shock, horror... hehe, would have been lovely... but I digress. Yes, catnaps are good when timed correctly. I still feel like absolute hell and I'm starting to get noticed in that way from my family but... gotta roll with the punches, eh?

So... with catnaps giving me extra hours to fill, one of my norms has become checking up on Tanya and Hailey when I can. Kent, her boyfriend, lives there too but is rarely home so... yeah, I'm not really worried about him. He's one of those guys that look as though they could take on an army themselves. Even I watch my words a touch with him since I'd rather not get into THAT fight, and that's saying something. But yes, the other two I've been more than a bit worried about since the "Tall Man" has caught Hailey's attention. There have been odd incidences here and there - a suit standing far off down the street (I'd wait in my car until He decided to move on) - but, for the most part, there hasn't really been much in the way of activity there apart from the odd flash of black out of the corner of my vision (paranoia/reality/no idea/call it what you want). Today though.... I was glad I was driving past. Truly.

I could see Him so clearly - standing just across the street from their home. Anger was the first thing to hit me - first Bogie, and now Hailey? Now Tanya? FUCK NO. HELL NO. NO WAY IN GODDAMN HELL. I beelined for Him... but slammed on the brakes when I saw Hailey stepping off the last step of the duplex and running from the stairs out onto the street. I don't even remember if I put the parking brake on before I lunged out of it - grabbing Hailey up off the ground. It's all just a blur. A lot of things are these days. I do remember how He looked at me then - the kid squirming on my hip, my arms around her... and me staring right back. I was pissed, but I was also terrified. Not of Him, but of losing them. I think He knows the difference. His attention seemed to flicker between me and Hailey as I started backing up towards the house - never taking my eyes off Him. I was laughing still, like I always seem to be with Him around, but I felt no humor. Only a pit in my stomach that grew as He..... as He began to walk across the street. Hailey was squirming badly - yelling things at me to put her down (I think), but I wasn't really cluing into that. I yelled at Him then - I don't even remember what. It was just whatever was coming to my tongue at that point. At first I thought it was something I had said that made Him stop... or maybe that I had grabbed my brother's hunting knife with my free hand from its sheath around behind my back... but that's when I saw movement behind me and glanced back to see Becky having just come out of the front door of her home. She was looking right passed me and at Him - eyes huge in awe and wonder. Then she grinned broadly - showing missing teeth - and followed that track.

I did nothing. I let her walk by me and up to the "Tall Man." He just watched as she approached, His head tilting just slightly before He looked back at me - like He was actually wondering what I would do. My reaction? I just held onto Hailey tighter. It was a sacrifice and I accepted it. I think... He was amused. At least, that was the feel I got from Him at that point. He HAD been annoyed, challenging... and now He was amused. He then turned back to Becky and held out His hand to her (even His damn fingers are long). She took it without hesitation and the two turned. I watched the entire time until they disappeared down between two buildings - her trotting at His side to keep up.

He was going to take one of them. I chose Hailey to stay. He had given me that choice. For now.

After He was out of view, Hailey suddenly stopped squirming and asked such an innocent question: "Mishowwl... where did Ecky go?"

I took her back inside without a word.

I'm staying the night at Tanya's - actually that's where I'm typing this. Amber Alert has been going on for hours now. There's been police and everything outside looking for a missing child that I know is never going to turn up. I told the police I didn't see a thing. It's simpler that way.

Becky is gone because of my inaction and that's that. Hailey is temporarily spared. I have no regrets.

I'm going to tell Tanya tonight what's happening. She needs to know. The Black King won't stop just because He got Becky today. Maybe this way there's a chance Hailey can still be spared. A lot of us did get away as children... I need to know HOW.

If any of you know any tricks, please share them. I don't care if you don't agree with what I did today - this is about HAILEY and not ME. Please don't confuse that. She's only THREE. She deserves longer. Please. For now I'm going to make up a charm thing like I suggested Mystery did for his niece, but I really need more ideas than just that. I don't care what level they sink to - whatever might work, I'll do.