She had been stalked by Slenderman and his proxies for years now, and although at first she had been able to hold strong, her faith was failing. Her friends, dead, her family, missing, her dreams, corrupted, her spirit, broken. She was ready to give up. They came into her head, telling her that soon she would be one of them.

She screams out to the sky one night, the stars peacefully hanging in sky, oblivious to her painful insomnia, her justified paranoia, her crippling agony. It was almost as if they mocked her, and it was all she could do to keep from falling to her knees as the shadows giggle and the stars dance in her tear-filled eyes, and she cries out to the heavens in a wordless plea.

And the heavens answer.

At first just little things, a few drops of water onto parched earth; as she lies in bed, sweating and shaking from too many sleepless nights, too many days of her stomach in knots so tight she can't eat, too many days spent glancing fearfully into every alley and corner, the proxies actually aren't in the shadows, their mad laughter smashing her with insomnia, forcing herself to stay awake, so they can't creep into her dreams as they do her thoughts. No, she actually sleeps, without relieving the last few miserable months, without dreaming of death once more.

At first this frightens her; what were they up too? What were they planning for her that could be so big as to miss out on her daily torture sessions? But in a few nights, the once silent shadows return to giggling maniacally.

She feels a wave of relief, as well as a wave of agony.

But as she can no longer hold on and falls into sleep at her desk, the shadows giggling around her, she dreams of black. Not the cold red and blinding static she usually does as the laughter that is in the darkness all around her spirals into her empty head, her thoughts stolen, the only ones she retains leading in circles. But tonight, the laughter swarms about her, but she cannot feel it. Her head is absent of the maddening carousel of the few thoughts she retains, and the pain is filed away with them, at least 'till she wakes.

When she wakes, actually rested for the first time in a long time, the shadows are silent, the atmosphere surrounding her -corrupted by them- heavy with confusion and tainted with frustration.

When she goes into public, she is no longer spotlighted by shadows, but feels the sun's warmth in her hair, and hot anger fills the atmosphere.

Her dreams are blank more and more often, and she begins noticing people on the street glancing at her; a boy with purple eyes watches her curiously and follows her around the mall, not aggressive or malicious in any way, but yet slips into the crowd when she starts toward the security guards. A girl with pink hair watches as she walks, and the red eyes in the shadows brood darkly, angry.

The proxies begin closing in on her; deciding to end the game. She gets sick more and more often, horrible wracking coughs, high fevers. She usually lies on her bed in a shaky, half- conscious state. Her dreams are tainted more often.

One night her clothes are soaked in sweat, fighting for conscious to avoid the deafening laughter her dreams are swirling with. The shadow's laughter is high-pitched shrieks, hysterical. This is it. They've come for her.

She hears the footsteps in the forest; the operator approaching, as the shadows bounce with anticipation, glowing red eyes pushing forward, shadows gathering. The laughter, which has been louder every time she's drifted back from unconscious, is now total, all consuming, rattling her mind, taking her thoughts and pulling them through its heavy, thick waters, the laughter drowning her.

Then the laughter goes staticy, before cutting out altogether.

The shadows around the red eyes, which had been gathering into the forms of bodies, fall away like water to the floor- where shadows belong- as the footsteps of the operator stop. The red eye's narrow, the shadows shriek with fury. As they pull back into the shadows and disappear; a retreat, she hears new noises from the forest; excited whoops and shrieks ring in the night air. Their shrieks are of excitement and pain.

As her grip on reality falters and sleep reigns in her head, so too does black. The angry snarls countered by hysterical, but not feral, laughter in the forest cannot touch her dreams.

Her medical condition is the same in the morning. She's shocked; she's done nothing but deteriorate for the past few months, especially rapidly in the past week. Her vision hazy, her voice nonexistent, her limbs unraiseable and burning with ache, her body caught in a violent tug-of-war between chills and sweats; a rag doll being pulled by the arms by two children, each fighting for ownership, for dominance. Her breathes are shallow gasps, painful against her raw throat. She drifts into unconscious more often than she drifts out.

She's all the same as yesterday, except today, she embraces unconscious; black and painless, sinking into warm, black waters, instead of being propelled manically through demented space; ever changing colors, all bright shades of black, the pain crawling heavily over her skin, the air thick with psychotic laughter.

Painless black is much better.

The next day, she's actually better; the sleep has done her wonders. It no longer hurts to breath. She sleeps more.

The next day, she's well enough to get up and feebly stumble about the house, managing to keep down crackers and soup.

That night, laughter cuts in and out of her dreams like a bad cell phone connection, but with longer gaps. When she awakens, the shadows are not laughing, but muttering furiously amongst themselves.

A flash of pink hair disappearing into the trees; the nearly silent footsteps uneven; a limp audible in her gait. She's left medicine on the front porch. A purple eye watching in the shadows, the other blackened and swollen shut. He keeps the red eyes -and their voices - at bay.

Furious shrieks in the forest, countered by ecstatic shouts and laughs.

The atmosphere around her shifts; the psychopathic laughter now holds no weight on her. She can feel the mad energy in the air all around her, locking in on her and spiraling toward her, but it disappears before it gets to her.

The proxies stop laughing altogether, instead furiously trying to destroy, as they call them, "the $%^*ing little pests". She can feel in the atmosphere their frustration, and can tell from that frustration how the "pests" dance around the edges, kicking and punching briefly, then swinging away before a blow can be landed on them, only to show up on the other side of the circle, whose backs are turned from watching their retreat, and smack them upside the back of their head before ducking and whirling away.

Her strength has returned, and so too has her resolve. The angry mutters and shrieks of ire fill the space about her, but can't reach her sleep; infuriating the proxies more. One shakes off the shadows and rushes her in her sleep, the purple eyes smile. The proxy's foot is caught in a paper-thin crack in the space around the girl, expanded to catch his appendage; he shrieks and struggles free. Awakened by running footsteps, the girl sees this and understands; the madness directed toward her slips instead through these cracks.

Shouts in the forest; no eyes in the shadows of her room. She smiles and throws off the sheets, lacing up her shoes and rushing out the door. She joins purple eyes and pink hair in committing battery against the supernatural. She fights with all she is; the pieces she thought were stolen from her, only hidden, now found. She found herself in sleep, after drowning in insomnia for months. She found herself in dreams; even dreams of black, after her dreams were corrupted whenever insomnia allowed sleep. She finds herself in her thoughts, after wanting to avoid painful thought for so long. She found herself in strength, after being broken for so long. She found herself in defiance, after months of indifference. She found herself in faith, after believing there was nothing to believe in. She found herself in hope, after thinking there was no way she could be saved. She found herself in happiness, which she had been so deprived of before, and was so much more frequent now.

And she fought with everything she had found. All parts of herself.

With no cracks in her being, no slip in her defense, and no way for them to touch her, with the cracks in the atmosphere about her, there was nothing they could do. Especially with two other little freaking ninjas smashing at them. A retreat, into the forest.

That was the last she ever saw of the proxies. And of the operator.

A smile in purple eyes, a nod of pink hair, and vanished too into the night two allies. Two friends.

She was tired; fighting with everything you have drains you. She went into her room, the shadows hiding only her walls and floor, as shadows should, and slept. Her dreams were not of laughter, now, but also not black.

She dreamed, really dreamed, for the first time in a very long time.

Happy Birthday America! I'm uploading this at two in the morning on the fourth of July.

This was actually inspired by a fic called "Challenged Chronicles". I was wondering, "What if someone was being stalked like that, but had outside interference? Someone helping them?"

Please let me know what you thought! Reviewing is clinically proven to increase swag by 200%! (At least in my world. The world of Catz, and of her Cheeze).

Bye-bye, skittles!