The Slender Man: A Mystery

by KeeYN

Thank you for choosing to read this. This will be my first published fan work and I do hope you enjoy it. This story is going to be made of a number of chapters, although the amount of said chapters is currently unforeseen. It is based around characters of my own creation, the main character to be Miles Winterwood, and regions of my own design. Rated M for possible explicit scenes.

It's Monday, October 7th 2013, and I have uncovered a mysterious, corrupt file on my friend's video-recorder's memory-card. He's been so rude to everyone lately, so I felt that I had to take it from his satchel while he wasn't looking, and I felt no need to worry as he has so many I am sure he'd not notice one missing. He has been taping a lot recently, basically everywhere he goes I see him with a video-recorder, and I need to know what has been going on.

I managed to find a program online, which I soon downloaded. This program advertised the ability to recover any faulty data inside files that may have been accidentally wiped, although the site states that its success rate may not be so much as one would hope. I thought I might try anyway, and although the result was a less-than-perfect video file, I am thankful that it is actually read by my media player now. I was in no way prepared for what I saw in that video, and I wish to warn anyone reading that what I have seen so far does not explain much, but was still frightening to me as someone who has seen how he has been acting lately.

The video starts perfectly fine, the camera in the passenger seat of my friend's car, facing him. He is driving, staring at the road quite intently, though seemingly distracted from his driving as he was murmuring quietly to himself. I recognize none of the scenery that I can see outside the car's driver-side window, so he is clearly on a road unbeknownst to me. He pulls the car over, as can be seen by his steering and the movement of a tree visible in the background, and hurried out of the car, grabbing the camera as he exited. From this point he seemed to hold the camera as steady as possible, though his running definitely made this a hard task. He ran through the woods, approaching a large brick wall, but as he neared it the camera faced the ground and a click could be heard. I assume he secured the camera to something here, as all I could see were his legs as he tried to scramble up the wall.

The camera hit the wall as he jumped over, and the lower half of the video became distorted, from what I assumed was probably a malfunction of the camera when it was hit. When he jumped to the ground again the video seemed to stabilise, providing a clear picture once more, followed by a click once more before the camera was jolted upwards to scan around the area. I could have sworn at this point I saw a man in a tuxedo as the camera was panned left to right, and I replayed this part many times, still seeing him, but unable to stop the video at the right frame to confirm my suspicions. He didn't seem to notice the man that I saw, as he continued running forward unfazed, though at this point I still knew not what he was looking for. In the distance was an old building that appeared to be abandoned, built inside a clearing of these woods. It looked quite modern, though still solitary where it was, with no other buildings around it.

My friend was panting, clearly becoming worn out, and he stopped for one moment, though almost instantly began to run again. This confused me, as it's not like him to be scared, but he seemed to have picked up pace, breathing heavily. At his point the camera fell to the ground, the video and sound becoming distorted and impossible to take any information from. For about 20 seconds or so I knew not what was happening apart from what sounded like a scream that pierced my ears. At his point one quadrant of the video returned, in the bottom left of the screen, and I could see my friend's leg grabbed by a black, tentacle like appendage, hoisting his body into the air.

This moment is where the video file ended. I was horrified, and although I had no clue of what was going on I was scared. What was it that grabbed him? Was it because of this situation that he now acts so cruel and repressed to others? And why is it that I, his best friend, would not be informed about his adventures into the woods? He has always trusted me as I have trusted him, and so it is that I plan to find my friend again and confront him about it. I need to find out what had happened to him that day. I will update a log tomorrow after I search for him and any more evidence of these adventures into the woods.

-Miles Winterwood.