2586

"Old people told us that here, nearby, there's another, different world." She said finally. "Same as ours. When we look into water, we see our reflection, but the rest is just blurry image of that other world." (…) "Sometimes when we stand in the evening on a waterside, we hear distant bells ringing in the churches of that other world." – Andrzej Pilipiuk "Wieczorne Dzwony"1)

Warning: Violence and its consequences.

Rating: T to M.

Pairings: none.

Disclaimer: Slenderman © Eric Knudsen (as Victor Surge), 2586 Kroków/Wieczorne Dzwony (and everything it contains) © Andrzej Pilipiuk.

Story and all OCs © Archer Black.

Prologue - Slenderman in the Snow.

oOo

Holly Cross Mountains. Early '90s. Winter.

The winter was cold, snow covered everything thickly. A small girl played in the snow, rolling a large ball and then putting it with some effort on even larger one – a snowman in the making. The child stared a third ball while her parents stood near, talking and keeping an eye on their child.

Nearby between trees and leafless bushes on the verge of a forest a lone creature sat hidden, observing the child as she neared in search for the best snow for her ball oblivious to the deadly peril hiding just metres away.

The creature tensed, the girl was getting closer and closer to its hiding spot and out of her parents sight. Just a few more paces and she'd reach the first, now naked shrubs on the border of the forest. The creature unfolded its tentacles and aimed at the child.

"Michelle! Get away from there at once!" The mother hollered. "There may be poachers' traps there!"

The creature froze instantly.

"But MUM!" The girl protested. "The best snow is right here!" She whined but obediently rolled her ball away, heading back to where her unfinished snowman stood.

The creature lowered its tentacles. That was so close but it wasn't anything new, winter wasn't its usual time for hunting, but it didn't mean that it would pass a chance if presented with one. This time however the chance slipped away, oh well, c'est la vie2) as they say. The creature looked at the girl again – she was now placing the smallest ball on top of the two others.

The snowman was almost done when large, heavy snowflakes started to slowly descend from the sky. The sky seemed to be lighter now, but it only meant that the snowfall would continue.

"Michelle, come, we're going home." The father decided.

"Can I finish my snowman first?" The girls asked. She was now in the process of putting snow in places where the calls connected to stabilise them and also smoothing the surface of the snow.

"No, the snow is getting worse and it's late, time for dinner." The father beckoned on the girl.

"Awww!" The girl whined.

"You can make another one tomorrow." The mother said.

"Promise?" The girl, Michelle, asked.

"Yes, promise. I'll even help you with it." Mother took the girl's hand. "Besides, aren't you cold already?"

"A bit." The girl admitted and indeed, her cheeks and nose were getting red from the cold. "What's for dinner?"

"Tomato soup." The father replied. "With noodles."

"Can we make a cake later?" The girl skipped between her parents as they left.

"Only if you eat your soup first." The mother answered.

The creature observed as the trio walked away. There she went – his dinner walked away to eat her dinner. But there would be other opportunities – the creature was no stranger to hunger. Just as it was about to leave its hiding place the girl turned back to give the abandoned snowman last glance. The creature saw her golden-green eyes finding the lump of snow and resting on its hiding spot, for a second it seemed as if the girl stared directly into its featureless face but luckily she didn't notice its presence. The last thing it needed was to be spotted, even by a child.

oOo

Holly Cross Mountains. Present day. Winter, January 2nd.

A dark red Fiat Doblò 3) drove smoothly between snowy fields in the darkness of what passed as afternoon at this time of a year. Its lights shone brightly illuminating slowly falling snow flakes in front of it.

Michelle watched the snow with grim face. The day started nice when she left her parents' place in Warsaw, the sky wasn't exactly spotless but it was sunny and last two weeks were extremely frosty and thus snowless thanks to the dry Siberian air. The weathercast forewarned that this state wouldn't last and that there would be heavy storms rolling over the country which made her change her plans and shorten her holiday stay at her parents' place to avoid driving in dangerous conditions. The weathercast claimed that the storms would arrive late at night or in the early morning the next day.

Her mother wasn't thrilled about the idea but Michelle knew that if the old house inherited from her grandmother was to remain habitable someone had to be there and keep it warm and dry in the winter. It wasn't long before she regretted not staying at least until the worse snow storms passed through and the weather stabilised.

Most of the trip went smoothly, the weather started to change pretty quickly, at first it was just clouds that covered the sky, but they were getting lower and lower and looked more and more heavy. At that point she already knew that the snow fall would start earlier that the weathercast anticipated.

The first, heavy snowflakes fell slowly from the steadily rolling clouds shortly before she reached the last city on her way and started to turn into actual snow storm just after she passed it. Before she reached the last small town the weather improved slightly, the storm ended and the snowfall was lessening.

Now the conditions improved with snow becoming pretty light and Michelle wanted to reach home before it would deteriorate again. It was going well so far but soon she would turn into small, local road that wasn't important or frequented enough to be cleared by snow ploughs, at least not until all the other, larger roads were dealt with.

Michelle reached her turn-off easily and instantly knew it would only get harder from now on. Not only the road wasn't cleared off which wasn't a surprise, the snow ploughs left sizable deposit of snow blocking her turn – she had to push her way through it.

Right behind the bend she saw first houses of the last village on her way before reaching her destination. Despite the darkness it was still pretty early so the warm lights shone in the windows. Michelle wished she was home already but then she remembered that it would be cold there – no one to keep it warm while she was away. The street lamps casted yellow light, making the snow glisten slightly, the road was straight here so she decided to speed up a bit but instantly slowed when she felt her car's rear 'dancing' on the slippery surface of the snow covered road. That wasn't such a good idea after all – even with slightly higher speed she wouldn't hurt herself but she wasn't too happy about the perspective of landing in a ditch and having to drag her luggage to her home on foot in these conditions.

She passed the village in slower pace than she would like but without any incidents and soon her only source of light became her headlights. Just as she left the last house behind her a wood came to her view, tall pined growing on both sides of the road.

She knew that wood, it was small part of larger forest that reached to the road, the strip of trees ended just before the last bend, from there it would be straight road all the way to her destination. She could spot an old dirt road leading deeper into the forest – it cut straight through the forest and let to fields, some people still used it during harvest time. There was a small, wooden shrine of the Holy Mary4) hanging on one of the trees near the road. It was so old that the decaying wood barely held its original shape and the paint was long gone. She could see it now and she smiled recalling an old, local legend5) about that shrine when she spotted something laying in the snow in the now naked bushes, just between the trees next to where the dirt road was.

She stopped to take a better look but she couldn't see well, it was too dark. The only true source of light were her headlights. She turned and aimed at where she knew the old dirt road was hidden under the snow and drove between the trees. Some gentle manoeuvring allowed her to aim her headlight closer to the shape.

At first she suspected that the shape could be a boar, they were seen in these woods, but as her headlights shone near the laying shape she saw that it was neither a boar nor any other wild or domesticated animal, it definitely looked like a human. She glared at the body in the snow and wondered how they could end up in there. Certainly not hot by a car, they were too far from the road and there were no marks at the side of the road, the snow there was impeccable. The body wasn't covered in snow so whatever happened here it was after the snow storm. Maybe it was robbery? Someone robbed this poor person and dragged them there, and she didn't paid attention to how the snow on the dirt road looked like, too focused on manoeuvring her car.

Whatever the case was, she had to check if that person was alive or not and call for ambulance or police, or both. She got out of the car and gasped. Inside was relatively warm but outside the frosty air pushed her breath back to her lungs. The snow reached to her mid shins and in some places it would probably reached her knees but fortunately she had knee boots. She awkwardly walked to the shape and saw that the person wore a thin looking business suit. So it was a he then. And probably dead one too, it wouldn't take long to freeze to death in such cold wearing nothing but thin suit.

When she got near the fallen man she saw blood stains on the snow around him, if that was his blood he was also wounded. He was lying on his belly, she knew she shouldn't do that, but she had no other way of checking if he was alive in these conditions, she gently rolled the man to his back and instantly jumped back, tripped and landed on her rear.

The man had no face! And not because it was missing. In place of where his face should be, there was a blank skin. There were indentations where eye sockets were, small bump where the nose should be but otherwise there was nothing. No hair, no eyebrows, no mouth. Even ears were but small bumps.

Her first thought was that it was a store mannequin that someone threw away, but then there was the blood on the snow, it could be fake blood, but the "mannequin" was bleeding it. So it had to be a costume. Perhaps this man participated in a masquerade that went wrong?

Michelle picked herself up, reached to see if she could take the mask off and jumped back again, landing in the same place as before.

"What the truck!" She whispered in awe. That was no mask.

She gathered herself from the snow covered ground once more and shook the snow off. This wasn't happening. This was absurd. This wasn't possible. She paced from her car to the fallen 'man' and again. Was this some sort of a prank? She looked around. It wasn't a prank. That wasn't a good place for pranks, not at this time of year, not at this hour and not in this weather.

"But this is impossible." She stood above the faceless man. "Slenderman doesn't exist. He's just some modern version of bogey man to scare naughty brats with." She exclaimed to the universe as a whole. The universe didn't reply.

She kneeled next to the creature again. Maybe it was mask after all and she just missed its rim? She reached again and checked the neck of the man, there was no rim. And it was not a mask of any kind: when she moved the creature's head she saw that it was skin, there was a cut just above its eye ridge, the bleeding stopped due to low temperature but it was there. And there was a boot print on the side of its head too.

Wait! What?

Someone tried to stomp this creature's head into the ground… or in this case, snow? Michelle blinked and shook her head. This wasn't possible. Wasn't Slenderman supposed to be immensely powerful? Powerful enough to be able to handle any kind of an attacker?

Michelle growled under her nose. Why was she even considering these things? Slenderman wasn't real.

But when she looked down she saw a being lying at her feet, remaining irritably real and alive if the slight rising if its chest wasn't just her eyes playing tricks on her.

"Damn it all." Michelle swore and forced herself not to sigh; it would only end with coughing fit. What should she do?

One thing was sure; she couldn't just call the ambulance or the police. What would she tell them if she did? 'Come quickly I have unconscious Slenderman here and I think someone assaulted him'? They not only wouldn't believe her, they would think she was some prank caller.

She couldn't leave this being here either… could she? She stared at the creature for a moment. This was pure absurd. Slenderman was supposed to be creepy and powerful not at low ebb and in need of help.

She looked around, she had to hurry up with making up her mind; the snow was increasing. Her car's headlights were revealing that the snow was falling more and more dense. Her eyes fell on the old, decaying shrine, what was left of the wooden Mary stared back. Michelle pulled an annoyed face.

"Oh fine!" She growled. It wasn't that she was overly religious. In fact she wasn't religious at all, closer to spiritual if anything. But bigotry was one thing and having basic morals was another. Michelle wanted to be able to look herself in the mirror and not be ashamed of who she was.

She returned to her car and opened the boot. In winter she always had a thick blanket there just in case. It took her a moment to dig it out from underneath her luggage, but it wasn't too difficult, she only had two bags. The blanket itself was old, grey and ugly but it was insanely warm. If anything happened it would be a life saver and today it might be just that.

She unfolded the blanket and placed it in the backseat and opened both doors. The inside of the car would get cold instantly but that was the best way to do it.

Michelle wasn't sure if she wouldn't cause more damage to the creature but she had no other option, she kneeled at Slender's head and as gently as she could picked the entity up. He was surprisingly heavy for someone or something as thin as he was, but she supposed he wasn't made of just skin and bones. The only way she could get him to her car was to hook her arms under his arms and drag him, but if it could get him where she wanted then it would have to do.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." She murmured as she tried to get into the back seat of her car backwards. It took some effort and the fact that her car was tall and had a large door did make it so much easier. Once inside she manoeuvred the Slenderman so he would sit on the blanket, his head rolled back but the creature made no noise. Fortunately she didn't have to handle any tentacles, if she recalled correctly the creature had them but it seemed that they were only deployed at will and not by default. She reached and pulled his legs in grateful again that her car was as large as it was.

"Thank the Common Sense I didn't chose a Mini.6)" She said crawling out through the other door. "Or the 5007)." She closed the door and ran around the car. On the other side she dove back in, wrapped the blanket around the unconscious entity, buckled the safety belt, checked if everything was right and slid the door close.

She looked around and didn't like what she saw – the snow storm would make its grand comeback soon. She jumped inside and started to carefully pull back, it wasn't easy in these conditions but absolute lack of other cars worked in her favour.

It wasn't that far to her destination from there but she had to drive past the sharp turn first. She was forced to slow down and drive at snail's pace, she was certain that she would make it faster on her own feet and dragging her unexpected passenger along with her. Driving like this was almost painful. It felt like forever but finally Michelle cleared the turn and found herself on the last straight line where she could drive relatively faster.

Should it be day Michelle could spot the first houses from where she was, but it was dark and most of the houses in the village her house was in were empty at this time of year so all she could see was the snow in her headlights and feeble shine of the streetlights. Her own house was in the middle of the village, but her nearest neighbours lived three empty houses away, and they were off anyway. At this time of year it was basically a ghost village, for forty-something houses only 14 were constantly inhabited, 3 of which emptied for the holidays.

The only people that stayed for the cold season were the ones that had any farm animals they had to tend to. The others that stayed were the ones with old houses that needed to be kept dry and warm through the winter, but they could leave for the holidays. The rest usually moved out to live with their families during the winter or only visited during summer holidays. One person rented their house for vacationists and another sold their house, some people from Cracow demolished the old house and wanted to build themselves some luxurious 'mansion'.

The village looked spooky, empty houses illuminated by weak, yellow light of the street lamps seemed eerie. Michelle was accustomed to it by now. She stopped in front of her gate and gave it critical look. The snow accumulated around it and she knew it would give her some workout to push it open. Normally she kept it cleared to be able to open it without problems.

She got out of the car and pulled out the key to the padlock that kept the gate closed. It was there mostly to make sure that the wind wouldn't damage it by breaking it loose than to keep anyone out. There was a small problem with the padlock but after short struggle it opened, Michelle made a mental note to fix it with some WD-40 the next morning. Then she pushed each half open, it did require a bit of effort but it went easier than she thought it would. The snow was still fresh and loose.

She drove the car into the yard, closed the gate and locked it with the padlock. She was practically home… well almost, there were still things to do and she had a 'guest' that she needed to take care of.

The first thing she did was to leave the Slenderman inside the car – at the moment it was the warmest place around anyway – and ran to the house. Her first stop was the boiler room to start up the heating system but it would take some time for the water to warm up so the next thing she did was to go to the kitchen and start a fire in an old masonry stove. It would take some time too and it would only heat up the kitchen/living room area but it would bring results faster than the boiler.

Before the fire could start up properly she already put two pots of water on the stove and left for what usually served as her room for her desk chair, she dragged it to the hall and went out to get the Slenderman.

Getting the tall creature into the house was a challenge but Michelle managed with use of her desk chair. Once she deposited the still unconscious Slenderman on the sofa in the living room area, she moved to get her bags, call her mother to tell her that she reached home safely and move the car to the barn that served as a garage.

Having all that done, Michelle checked the water but it needed more time, the fire in the stove burned nicely and the boiler was heating up slowly. The house was still unpleasantly cold, but there was nothing much she could do about it. She took her boots and winter jacket off and brought two plastic basins from the bathroom, some bandages, cotton cloth and pair of latex gloves.

The next thing to do was to strip Slenderman off of his clothes. First he'd be better off the wet and cold clothes and second she needed to see how bad the damage was.

His shoes went off first and Michelle noticed with relief that she didn't need a gas mask to operate near the creature's feet. The shoes landed next to the stove where they would dry nicely. Next were his socks which landed on the floor. Michelle moved up and unwrap the blanket, Slenderman didn't react and she wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad sign.

Taking off the suit's jacket proved to be quite a challenge and it took time. Everything that Slenderman did in response was to inhale deeply and stir slightly but he stayed out. As soon as jacket joined the socks Michelle reached and pulled the belt off the trousers and hung it on the chair. The tie went next, but it landed in top of the jacket.

Upon seeing the shirt Michelle reached and pulled the gloves on – the once impeccably white shirt was stained with blood. Taking it off was just as problematic as the jacket, but it finally went off and Michelle saw that there were more light blue-red bruises on the chest of the creature. Some of them looked like the boot print on its head, other looked like fists, there were few that looked suspiciously as if someone used knuckle dusters. Some of the blows were strong enough to make the skin burst and that's where the blood came. The wounds closed off and the only reason why her efforts to take his shirt off didn't reopened them was because the shirt was wet and didn't stick to the wounds.

Michelle looked at the trousers and sighed, there was no other way around it. She unbuttoned and unzipped the trousers, pulled them down and 'eep-ed'. She wasn't sure how to address the creature before but now all her doubts were gone. Slenderman was definitely a HE.

Michelle winced and pulled the trousers all way down and off his feet. It wasn't that she never saw a naked man before – she was divorced – but she expected Slenderman to wear some sort of underwear. Any sort of underwear. Briefs, boxers, long johns, a bloody loin cloth would do! But no, Slenderman went commando.

She picked corned of the blanket and covered the entity's private area and proceeded with assessing his state. As far as she could tell no limb was broken and the only wounds she could see were the ones where his skin burst from the blows he received, brain concussion was possible but there was no way of checking it at the moment. She gently felt his stomach in search of any signs of internal bleeding but it was soft which was good. The ribcage was bruised which could indicate broken or fractured ribs but the creature was breathing freely so she assumed that no lung was punctured. She should check if he breathed out any blood drops but he didn't have any actual nose.

Michelle, as gently as she could, rolled the creature to the side to take a closer look at his back. As she suspected it was as bruised as the front but it also seemed to have weird slits. She counted eight of them, four on each side of the back. They were too symmetrical to be wounds and they did not bleed though one was swollen and bruised. The woman guessed that it was where the tentacles came from.

"Does that mean he only has eight tentacles, of more than one can get out of it?" She whispered while examining the swollen slit. It looked painful.

By the time Michelle finished examining Slenderman's back the water in both pots started to boil. She poured it to both basins and added some cold water to make it temperate. She torn the cloth in two and put each of the half in basins.

Cleaning off the blood and bandaging wasn't very complicated but when she finally finished the water in one basin was red. It wasn't perfect job but it would have to do for the night. She wrapped Slenderman into the blanket again and went to her room to set the bed.

The second room was absolutely cold, only now she felt the difference the masonry stove made. She turned the radiator's thermostat so the hot water could circulate and proceeded with setting the bed. During winter she usually slept on the couch in the living room area, it was comfy and she could monitor the masonry stove better so her actual bed stood unused. This time it would serve her extraordinary guest.

Once the bed was made she returned to the kitchen and awkwardly moved the Slenderman back to her desk chair. The creature seemed slightly better already because he rolled his head and hissed. Or at least it sounded like hissing. Michelle stopped in her tracks but nothing happened so she proceeded with rolling the chair and its occupant to the room. Slenderman trembled slightly but Michelle paid him no mind: in a moment he'd be tugged under thick duvet, he'd be warm and comfy.

Putting him into the bed was easy, especially that she decided to leave the blanked wrapped around the being, the bed was still cold.

Only then she could finally take care of herself. It wasn't late but she felt very tired and hungry. Unpacking could wait for the next day. All she wanted to do was to eat something, drink some hot tea and go to sleep. When she left the room she almost tripped over Slenderman's discarded clothes and remembered about the basins.

"Oh TRUCK!" She whined.

TBC

IMPORTANT NOTE!

There are few things I want you – dear reader – to be aware of as you will (hopefully) continue to follow this story. They're not necessary for you to enjoy the narration as such, but they help to better understand the purpose of it, and its characters.

So yeah, an OC finding wounded canon character and helping them – I use this plot device intentionally, I know it is a bit of cliché but it serves its purpose in this story perfectly.

Moving to the OC herself. Michelle is my porte-parole which is a fancy word for a character that presents views and beliefs of their author. Because she is my porte-parole I allowed myself to equip her with some physical and psychological traits that runs in women of my family (or at least my mum's side of it) and lives same region as place where I have spent quite a portion of my childhood. But it is important to note that this is not Self Insert in any way or form. The place Michelle lives resembles my childhood place so much because it is easier and more natural for me to narrate, that's all.

The story itself is one against hate crimes (be it inspired by politics, religion, race/ethnicity or anything else), prejudice and false assumptions based on stereotypes. These are the things that were taught to us in history class as leading to hate crimes. Moreover, these things still happens.

The story may be viewed as containing some mild romance, but it is not a romance as such. It is also not connected in any way to any of my other stories.

And the most important part: The Safety Disclaimer: Slenderman is not real, he's made up! I know he's rad and awesome, but he doesn't hurt people and doesn't make anyone do anything because he's not real! No matter how much some of us wished he was. So no silly ideas and spare me the drama – if someone hurt someone else "for Slender" it means that they're either a delusional idiot or using a fictional character as a poor excuse.

1) Original, Polish quote: "Starzy ludzie mówili, że tu, obok, jest inny świat - powiedziała wreszcie. - Taki sam jak nasz. Gdy patrzymy w wodę, widzimy swoje odbicie, ale reszta to zamglony obraz tamtego świata .(…) Czasem, gdy staniemy wieczorem na brzegu wody, słyszymy odległe bicie dzwonów w kościołach i cerkwiach tamtego świata"

The short story "Wieczorne Dzwony" (Evening Bells) comes from Anthology "2586 kroków" (2586 Steps).

The original quote differs from the translation in the fact that Polish language distinguishes Catholic and Orthodox churches (hence – kościół for Catholic Church and cerkiew for Orthodox Church). The title of the story is left in Polish because the story was never fully translated to English language, or at least I am not aware of it.

2) French for "such is life".

3) It's a LAV car, also known is some places as combivan, the choice of that particular model is important for the sake of not making Michelle's life too complicated when she makes crazy choices.

4) As in Holy Virgin.

5) That shrine exists, or existed when I was a kid. There really is local legend about it – a dead man was raised from the dead while he was carried in his coffin to the church for his funeral. The family had the shrine hung by the place where he sat in his own coffin. Of course it was no miracle – he simply wasn't dead in the first place (and the legend is really old one). It was a small miracle that he wasn't buried alive though. Or that he didn't wake up in the church during a mass – that would be super awkward.

6) Mini, the brand of cars, they're only 1,35 metres tall by 1,40 metres wide and 3 to 3,4 metres long (4,43x4,59x9,84-11,15 ft).

7) There are three Fiat 500 models: Fiat 500, 500L and 500X, Michelle naturally means the 500. I was tempted to make her name "Maluch" (Toddler) which is also Fiat model, but most people wouldn't know what it is. To picture why she's thankful let's compare:

Fiat "Maluch" is 1,33 metres tall by 1,37 metres wide by 3,05 metres long (4,36x4,49x10 ft).

Fiat 500 is 1,48 metres tall by 1,62 metres wide by 3,54 metres long (4,85x5,31x11,61 ft);

Fiat Doblò (the five seat after 2004 face lifting model) is 1,81 metres tall by 1,72 metres wide by 4,25 metres long (5,93x5,64x13,94 ft).