Hey! This is just a short Halloween fic I made in just a couple of days, so it's probably not very good and it's rushed. I just got this idea in my head after watching too much stuff about Slenderman, so it's not too developed of a story. Anyways, just read and tell me what you think!
The Tall One
"Are you sure we should be doing this? It doesn't seem safe..."
"Aw, come on, Toadette. Where's your Halloween spirit?"
I sighed, knowing it was futile arguing with Toad. Once he had his mind set on something, there was no turning back.
We walked down the narrow old path to the creepy forest at the end, me clinging to my boyfriend the entire time.
Honestly, he couldn't have found one worse way to spend Halloween night! I was ready to go trick-or-treating with my friends and show off my witch costume (which I had painstakingly sewn myself for the past three WEEKS just for the occasion), but no. Toad had stumbled upon these woods a couple of miles away from Mushroom City and had insisted that we all join him in exploring them. On Halloween. During the middle of the night. I had firmly refused, but he assured me that we would be back to go trick-or-treating, or he would have to buy me twenty bags of my favorite candy. "An hour or two is all we need!" he had said brightly, his smile melting me and denying any protest of going along with him.
So I agreed and now we were on our way to some stupid, dark forest that we had never heard about. I didn't want to admit it, but I was actually really scared. What if something happened to us?
'Nonsense!' I thought to myself, trying to act braver than I felt. 'You'll be fine! You're going with Toad and all of your friends! What are the odds of something like a murderer, or a ghost, or-'
I stopped myself. That wasn't helping.
We paused at the borderline of trees where eight people waited for us. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Yoshi, Birdo, Wario, and Waluigi stood by a sign that read 'Sporewood Forest'.
"Hey guys!" Toad said amiably.
"Hey Toad and Toadette." Mario responded. "So, are we all ready?"
"Almost." Luigi replied, fiddling with a video camera. "I just need to put this here...and...there we go!" He had attached the camera to some sort of band that wrapped around his head, leaving him hands free. Luigi had really gotten into film making and photography a couple of months ago, so I wasn't surprised to see him with a camera. He brought one with him all the time now, taping basically everything that happened to him. He had also seemed to get over his fear of ghosts and stuff, which is probably the only reason he had decided to come along with us.
"Great. Now can we please get on with this?" Wario said, tapping his foot impatiently.
"Fine, fine, let's go." Yoshi replied.
Without another word, they all entered the forest, leaving me to look at the opening they had disappeared through. I hated the idea of going into those woods, but staying here alone wasn't really a better option. I took a deep breath and ran in after them.
"Watch it, will ya!?"
I rubbed my head and looked up, seeing that I had just run into Waluigi.
"Um...sorry." I said. I got up and looked around myself.
It was extremely dark, and I could barely see anything, even though we were surrounded by trees. The night sky above us was the only thing that allowed me to slightly distinguish things from one another. It was eerily quiet and windless, as if we had been thrust into a pitch black box.
A bright light shined in my face, reminding me that I had brought my flashlight.
When I flicked it on, the trees and my friends became visible, easing my fears a little bit.
"Why didn't we turn them on before we came in? I almost tripped over this log." Daisy asked.
"Whatever. Let's go." Yoshi said.
We kept walking, the others talking and joking with each other, while I constantly looked over my shoulder, fearing that something was after me.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Toad asked me. "Are you scared?"
"N-no! Why would you think that?" I said. I cursed under my breath. It didn't sound very convincing.
"We can leave if you want. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable." Dammit. There was sadness in his eyes, but he sincerely meant it. He didn't want to leave, but he would, for me. I could never crush his hopes whenever he got that look.
"No, it's fine." I sighed, trying not to look back. I heard a rustling sound behind me and spun around. My flashlight caught movement and I focused on it. A squirrel bounded through the leaves and scampered up a tree.
I sighed in half relief and half embarrassment, Toad slightly chuckling at my paranoia.
"It's all right, Toadette. We'll be fine. I promise. And if anything does come after us, I'll keep you safe."
I allowed him to hug me close for a moment, closing my eyes as I listened to the steady beating of his heart, my own steadily slowing down to match his.
"We should probably catch up to the others now."
Shit. My heart rate sped up again, fear spreading throughout my body. This is EXACTLY what happens in horror movies! The group separates and the killer moves in to pick them off one by one! I tore myself away from Toad and sprinted off in a random direction.
"Toadette, wait!" he called after me and I stopped briefly to let him catch up. "Calm down! They went the other way anyways."
I smiled sheepishly and blushed. "Oh...r-right...sorry about that...I just..."
"It's all right. Now come on, let's catch up to them."
We calmly walked the other way, brief shines of light acting as our beacons and guiding us to where our friends were.
I tried to push my feelings of uneasiness out of my mind, but it was no use. I just couldn't seem to calm down again. I rested my hand on a tree nearby, but recoiled as I felt an unexpected texture under my palm. I stumbled away from it and slammed my head into another tree.
"Toadette! Are you alright?" Toad rushed to my side and I pushed him away, instantly regretting doing so when I saw the genuinely worried expression on his face.
"Sorry." I said, rubbing the painful spot on the back of my head. Toad stood up and walked to the tree that I had retreated from. I heard a tearing sound and he walked back to me, staring at a piece of paper.
"This is odd." he commented, handing the paper to me. As I look at it, I feel an odd feeling take over me, as if something is staring at me from between the trees. The note has a picture of a circle-or is it an oval? Either way, it has a letter 'X' over it with the words 'Always watches, No eyes.' on the paper.
"I bet it was one of those guys up ahead trying to scare us." Toad smiled faintly and shook his head. "But seriously, are you okay? It looked like you hit your head pretty hard."
"I said I'm fine!" I practically yell at him. He's taken aback and I silently cursed again. My paranoia is getting the best of me.
We continue, finding two more notes along the way, one reading 'Can't run' and the other with a picture of a thin figure with a round head, the word 'No' written around it over and over again.
"Okay, this joke's getting old." Toad said. He looked ahead and I did as well, noticing that we had finally caught up with our friends. They were all standing by some old building, seemingly waiting for something.
"Okay, which one of you has been posting these notes on the trees?" he asked them.
Everyone turned to him, confusion on their face.
"There you guys are! What, you two love birds wanted some alone time?" Mario chided.
"Shut up." I said, probably too harshly. "Just tell us, did any of you make these?"
I handed Peach the three pieces of paper and she looked at them, passing them to the others when she had finished.
"I know I didn't. If anyone, it was probably Wario or Waluigi, trying to mess with you."
"Hey! How come I'm the prime suspect?" Waluigi whined.
"'Cuz you're always trying to screw with people." Yoshi answered.
"I don't know why you would make something as creepy as this, though." Birdo said to Waluigi, looking at the papers. "These are pretty disturbing."
"I said I didn't do it, and neither did Wario!"
That's when I noticed something.
"Where is Wario?" I asked, hoping that the panic I felt wasn't present on my voice.
"He went in this building to go to the bathroom." Mario answered me, checking his watch. "Well, we said if he wasn't out in three minutes, we'd go on without him. Time's up, everybody. Let's roll!"
The others shrugged and started walking away from the building.
'Wario is a goner.' was the only thing I thought as I walked with them, staring back at the building.
7Z7Z7Z7
"Okay, he should have at least called us by now." Peach said, worrying about Wario.
"She's right. What if something happened to him?" Luigi added.
"Fine. Let's stop." Mario ordered. "Okay, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, and I will go back and fetch Wario. Someone call him and tell him to get his fat ass off the can and meet us outside." With that, Mario and his group walked back the way we had come.
I leaned against the side of the tunnel we had entered. It was odd to find some tunnel out in the middle of the woods like this, but the others hadn't seemed to mind waltzing in. I looked to my left and right, both ends of the tunnel visible to me.
"He's not picking up." Birdo said, calling Wario's phone again. She casually checked her nails, but perked up a moment later. Wario must have answered his phone.
"Wario? You there?" she asked. She winced and pulled the phone away from her ear. Even from where I stood, I could hear the deafening sound of static emanating from the phone. She pressed a button and ended the call.
"That's weird." Yoshi said as he scratched his chin.
"Not really. We're in the middle of the freaking woods. The reception sucks here." Waluigi growled, crossing his arms.
I rubbed my arm, the uneasy feeling I had before returning stronger than ever. I jumped as I felt something grip my shoulder, relaxing when I saw that it was just Toad.
"Don't worry, Toadette. I'm sure he's probably just trying to mess with us again." he smiled, leaning on the wall next to me.
I closed my eyes again and leaned on him, feeling safer with him beside me.
7Z7Z7Z7
My eyes flew open, darting back and forth in fear. I didn't know how long I had been asleep, but not much seemed to have changed. We were still in the tunnel, I was still sitting next to Toad.
Then I gasped in horror. Yoshi, Birdo, and Waluigi were missing. Something was wrong.
"Toad? Toad!" I shook him, unsettling thoughts creeping into my head all the while. His eyes fluttered open and he yawned.
"Wow. When did we fall asleep?" Toad stood up and stretched looking around him. "And where are the other three?"
"I don't know, but we need to get out of here." I stood up and grabbed his arm, pulling him away.
"Now hold on, hold on. Let's find out where are friends are before blindly charging off into the woods, okay?" He whipped out his cellphone and typed in a phone number. As he waited for somebody to pick up, I glanced down the tunnel we had run out of. I gasped slightly when I saw a figure standing far away at the other end. I squinted, trying to make out who it was, but I couldn't tell from so far away. But it didn't look like one of our friends. The figure was far too tall to be one of them.
"I can't reach them." Toad put his phone away. "What about you, did you bring your phone?"
"Let's go." I pulled him by the arm again, this time not stopping when he tried to break free.
"Would you calm down, Toadette?" he said, trying to get me to stop.
"I...I think I saw a light this way." I lied. By this point I was running. "It might be one of them."
"Really?" Toad asked and began to run with me, calling out their names.
"Don't do that!" I slapped my hand over his mouth. I didn't want whoever was following us to know where we were.
He was about to protest, but he fell to the floor. I stopped and bent down next to him, shining my flashlight on the ground to see what he had stumbled on, fearing I would find a severed arm or mangled body.
Instead, I found Luigi's video camera, discarded among the leaves and twigs of the forest floor.
"Aw man, Luigi must have dropped this. We should bring it back for him." Toad said, dusting himself off.
I looked at the small screen on it. The camera was still recording.
"Come on, let's go find those guys."
I ignored Toad and ended the recording. I scrolled through the list of videos until I found the most recent one. I started it and the scene from where we entered the woods began. I fast forwarded, my heart pounding with each second. Maybe this could tell me what had happened. I stopped at the point when their group left ours. Minutes went by with nothing noteworthy happening. I was about to fast forward again, but an exclamation from Daisy caught my attention.
"Hey, isn't that one of those notes that Toad and Toadette found earlier?"
The camera spun to her and she plucked it off the tree.
"What's it say, Daisy?" Luigi's voice said from behind the camera.
"'Help me'." she read.
Mario scowled and took the paper from her. "Okay, who's doing this? It isn't funny."
"I think someone might actually be in danger." Peach said, glancing over his shoulder to see it for herself.
"Who would write a bunch of notes and leave them around a forest like this?" Luigi asked.
"Dunno. Just keep an eye out for more." Mario ordered. He stepped out of the frame and I immediately paused the video. In the very edge of the screen, a figure stood, partially hidden behind a tree. It was so well hidden that it had nearly escaped my sight. The figure was facing the camera, almost as if it was staring at me as I stared back at it. The most noticeable thing about the person was that he was extremely tall, impossibly tall. His arms stretched to the floor. He wore a black suit which blended in well with the darkness, concealing him in the shadows. The most unnerving part about him was his face...or lack of a face. His head was bald and white, and where his face should have been, there was nothing. No eyes, no mouth, no nose. Nothing.
The picture of the thin figure flashed before my mind's eye, then the picture of the circle with an 'X' over it, the words 'Always watches, No eyes' streaming across my mind.
I dropped the video camera even as the video went on.
"Toadette, what's wrong? Are you feeling sick?" Toad held me and put his hand to my fore head.
"No, we just have to go!" I cried, pulling him away. I heard a scream and froze. It had come from the camera.
I rushed back to it and stared at the screen, but it had been overwhelmed in static. I rewound it and let the scene play again. The four were talking normally, joking about the time Peach had fallen into a fountain and humiliated herself.
"Hey, that's not funny! It was seriously embarrassing!" she pouted.
Mario chuckled and turned to Luigi. "Hey, is your camera broken or something? It's making some weird sounds."
The screen shifted as Luigi took it off his head and checked it. "Nah, it seems fine, just some static."
The static became even worse with every second, however, and Luigi's eyes narrowed.
"What the heck-?"
Peach's shrill scream filled the air and Luigi's camera shook violently. More shouts rang out and the camera was overcome by the static. A few moments later, Luigi's face came back onto the screen. The camera was pointed upwards as if it were laying on the floor, pointing up to the green plumber's face. He sat with his back against the wall, most likely in some small room. His eyes were red and puffy. They darted back and forth, fear very well present in them.
Luigi stared into the camera, panting as if he had just run a mile. "If anyone is watching this, do not go into the Sporewood Forest. Something lives there...he...no, IT..." He buried his face in his hands, sobs and undistinguishable words coming out of his mouth. He turned back to the camera and spoke again. "Don't look for it. Don't try to find out what it is. I don't even know what it is, but...it...it's not...it can't be from this world. It's a nightmare!"
Luigi looked around again as if he didn't know what to do, or as if he were keeping watch for something, perhaps both. He shook his head, tears still streaming down his face.
He got up and picked the camera off the floor. The screen briefly flashed over a section of the ground. Six pieces of paper lay on the broken, tiled floor, each with the same style of writing and drawing as the two pages that we had. Luigi must have strapped the camera to his head since it shook around while he gathered the papers into his arms. He turned to exit the room, but screamed and backed away when he saw the faceless figure standing there. The static returned, the last image on the camera being the slender man, arm like tentacles protruding from him and stretching toward the screen.
I turned the camera off, feeling sick and terrified.
"Toad, let's go. We can't help the others, let's just-"
Toad was no longer by my side. I moaned and backed up against a tree, looking left and right, hoping to see the creature and make sure that it hadn't snuck up on me, but not wanting to at the same time. I didn't want to see that horrible, faceless thing. I wanted to hope that this was all a dream or some cruel prank.
But I did see it, and all of my fears were confirmed.
Just twenty feet away, it stood there, still and blank, but menacing and terrifying. It did nothing, just stared at me as I stood in shock, hyperventilating.
I found myself curiously intrigued by it. I wanted to know about it, but I didn't at the same time. It's blank face gave away nothing, making it even more mysterious. A fleeting thought ran through my head and I wondered what would happen if I approached it.
Run. That word flashed through my brain and jolted me out of my transfixed stupor. I bolted to the right, not daring to look back.
I tripped over a fallen branch and fell to the ground, hard. I spun onto my back and propped myself onto my elbow. Sure enough, I saw it. Had it gotten closer to me than last time? Again, it did nothing, but I didn't let that stop me from getting up and running again.
This time, I didn't stop until I was out of the woods. I got as far away from the tree line as I could and bent over, coughing and gasping for breath. As soon as I had recovered, I walked across the street in front of me, a bus stop miraculously on the other side.
I sat on the bench and tried to think about what had just happened, but my mind didn't seem to want to think about it. I felt nothing, as if I was as empty and emotionless as that monster's face.
His face...
I heard a sound and glanced up, noticing that the bus had arrived. I got on and paid the fee, taking a seat alone near the back. I stared out the window as the bus started moving, almost hoping to see the thin man, as if it would ease my worries of me just imagining the entire event.
Was I going insane? Had it even happened? And what about my friends?
Thoughts buzzed through my head as I watched the scenery fly by. I thought about calling the police, but what would I tell them? My friends were taken by a tall man in a suit while we were traipsing through the woods? They wouldn't believe me, plus I had noticed plenty of signs warning anybody who was in the forest that it was a restricted zone, so that wouldn't help.
I was almost back into the city when I noticed something standing behind an abandoned barn. I tensed up and my eyes grew wider at the sight of the slender man. He stood there, his blank face staring back at mine as the bus went by. I stared down at my lap, not wanting to look outside in case I saw him again.
A half hour later, I was standing outside of my house, the cold wind brushing against my face as I fiddled for the keys.
I turned my head as the wind chilled me, but quickly slammed myself against the door, fumbling to stick the key into the lock.
He was here. He had been standing just to my left for who knows how long and I hadn't even noticed.
I finally opened the door and rushed inside, slamming it shut behind me, locking it as quickly as I could.
I stood with my back against the wall for a minute, feeling the lightning fast thump of my heart steadily slow down. I sunk to the floor and buried my face in my hands, letting the tears that I didn't know I had been holding back break free. My friends were gone. It had all been real. That thing had followed me. My boyfriend had been killed by it, or worse. Now it was coming for me.
I pounded my fist into the floor, anger suddenly becoming the only emotion I was feeling.
I hated that thing. I hated how it took my friends. I hated how it had taken my boyfriend. I hadn't even been able to say goodbye to him. I hated the way it stood and watched me, watching but not doing anything, making me anticipate when it would actually attack. I hated that it followed me home. I hated that it was still out there, patiently waiting for me. I HATED it.
I got up and flung the door open, the cold air blasting my face. I wasn't surprised to see him waiting just outside, his blank face staring down at me.
I glared back at him. I no longer feared him. I hated him. I wouldn't allow him to torture me, his presence always haunting me, out of sight enough to give me false hope, but visible often enough to remind me that he was always watching, my fate chained to him, him being the predator, I, the prey.
"What are you waiting for?" I yelled. "Get it over with! That's what you came here for, isn't it? Why are you toying with me?"
He stared back, his face unreadable,
"Just do it." I lowered my head and my voice fell with it, now barely more than a whisper as tears blurred my vision. "I can't live like this..."
When nothing happened, I jerked my head upwards again, screaming at him. "DO IT! JUST END THIS!"
I swear I saw him nod slightly, as if he was agreeing to do what I wanted, as if he only wanted to help me. The tentacles that I had seen in Luigi's video sprouted from his body, and the last thing I saw was them reaching for me as time seemed to slow. I smiled faintly. The tentacles sort of reminded me of arms. Not scary, creepy arms, but warm, tender arms, with an inviting, kind aura about them, as if they were reaching out to embrace you. A memory of my mother hugging me close to her flashed before my mind. I had had a nightmare and she had held me, her arms wrapped around me in a loving hug. These arms reminded me exactly of hers even though they looked nothing alike. But I knew that they both had the same meaning behind them.
I pondered why he would need so many arms, but it was soon clear to me when one was placed on my shoulder. He was firmly but gently guiding me to a new place, his other arms for those who would soon follow.
In an odd way, it was sort of comforting.
In the instant before my death, I wondered if this was what all of his victims felt just before they were taken away by him.
I hope you liked it. The ending might be a little confusing, but hear me out. I had decided to take a little bit of a twist ending when the thought 'What if Slenderman isn't really evil?' passed through my head. It's a little odd, I know, but it was certainly interesting to write, thinking about how death isn't really the end, just a journey to a new place. Stop and think about that for a bit.
Anyways, thanks for reading. This was mainly just a test to see how well I write in first person (since I had never really done it before) and to get me into the horror mood since I'll be starting my sequel to Lend a Hand soon. I hope you enjoyed, and Happy Halloween!
-booMshrooM