Run.
It's the unspoken rule of the Game. Keep moving, sprinting, and don't ever stop 'cause if you do death is certain. So you dash through the darkness and trees, jumping at every sound and smell and trying to keep your cool as the flashlight dies, collecting pages that tell you things you already know.
ALWAYS WATCHES. NO EYES.
No freakin' duh, idiots.
So you keep moving, keep running, even though your arms are bleeding and your legs burn so badly you want to die just to make. It. Stop! But you can't; it's his game, not yours, so there's nothing you can do except try and evade him. Cling to that last bit of life you have left in your adrenaline-fueled body while your mind works furiously in broken pieces.
Crack! Hiss!
Static fills the air.
Oh no. He's coming up on you, creeping sneaking teleporting closer. You can feel Death breathing down your neck, scythe scraping your skin like too-black shadow tentacles erupting from a certain
Monster
inside your head. Terror pumps through your head as blood pours down your back. It beats out an odd circadian rhythm, drums of Death and Pain and Torture banging out amidst the trees.
He's coming
He's coming
He's coming
Run!
So you do. You do even though your legs feel like lead and your mouth is full of cotton and trees smack you in the face. It hurts hurts so bad, but there's nothing you can do other than escape. Escape is the only option. He'll eat you, break you, rape you, hang your body on the branches and drink from your skull.
Monster.
Fucking monster.
You hate him, hate him more than you hate yourself for getting trapped in the web. More blood. Adrenaline keeps pounding, sweat pouring. There! Up ahead! Another note!
NONONONONONONONO!
Grab it. Shove it in your satchel and keep on the mood. The Drums speed up now, circadian beat pounding behind your eyelids and bashing ink, shadows, against your cranium. He's angry. He's very angry.
Fucking monster.
You hate him more than anything.
He's getting closer. You can feel him and Death, one and the same, breathing against your skin. Gooseflesh ripples. You're cold, too cold, everything is numb and you can't figure out why because a second ago you were too hot, sweat pouring from the countless number of minutes spent running away from the thing that wants your flesh. Then something brushes against the back of your neck and you scream, scream so loudly that you're sure Lucifer can hear it in his prison called Hell. . .
Or should you say your prison, because as you run run run for your life through trees collecting notes, him hot on your trail with all the tenacity of a wolf, the terror of a monster, you're certain that absolutely nothing can be worse.
You fall.
There is blood, blood everywhere and coating everything with a sticky crimson and tar coating that makes you want to gag. But you can't. You've fallen and hit your head and now everything's blurry, running together in watercolors of shadow, light, pain, confusion, terror. There's absolutely nothing keeping Him from killing you now. He's a hunter, a monster, and monsters prey on the weak and vulnerable and fucking stupid.
But he hasn't killed you. . .
yet.
You look up through hazy concussion-glasses and see a note on a massive tree a cursed tree larger than a pillar and taller than a skyscraper from your sprawled position. The note is crumpled yellow, and you know it's the last one because all the other messages circle through your diseased skull like the voices that just won' t Shut. UP!
A drawing of Him. . .
NONONONONONONO!
ALWAYS WATCHES. NO EYES.
CAN'T RUN.
He's right there behind you . . . FOLLOWS.
LEAVE ME ALONE!
HELP ME!
That's what you want to scream and shout and proclaim until your throat is raw, crimson colored like the rest of you. Your hand (God, is that mine?!) reaches out to grasp the yellowing paper between the bony fingers and too-thin too-bruised skin. Your eyes have got to be wild, have to be completely crazed, because for the first time since you started this damn crazy fight for survival you have hope. It won't be anything. The last note, last message, will be His downfall. It has to be. It's gotta be.
You won't keep what's left of your sanity if it isn't.
Words faded with time and insanity seem to claw out of the page and you reach a little further, finally taking hold of the ancient crumbling surface with a sob of relief that sounds like an explosion in the silence. Your flashlight is nearly gone, as battered and weathered and unable to last like you are, but you can read by the flickering glow.
DON'T LOOK . . . OR IT TAKES YOU.
Well, you have no intentions of looking, of seeing the monster thing that stalked you through the trees for what seemed like an eternity, inflicted pain and misery and helplessness and . . . .
Agony erupts in your chest.
You gasp, looking down with something akin to astonishment at the thing (tentacle) that protrudes from between your ribs. It looks like ink, like shadow, like you could take and just run your bony destroyed fingers through it without a problem. Iron bubbles up in your throat to coat your mouth, running between cracked lips and dripping onto the cursed soil. It doesn't hurt anymore. That astonishes you, terrifying exhilarating wonderful all at the same time.
And then you're being lifted and the agony rises to a new crescendo. You cry out, tears dripping even though you're pretty sure there shouldn't be any left to cry. Fingers claw at tentacles. They hurt. Want them out out out OUT! You turn in slow-motion, confronted by the very thing you've been so desperate to escape this entire time.
He's hideous.
He's nothing.
He's beautiful.
He's Death.
Perfectly smooth and featureless is the monster, dressed in an impeccably clean black suit. You can't fathom how it's so clean as your own blood gushes down your front like a river of ink because He's killed so many like you. It's not right. Then again, what is right in this fucking hell-hole?
The shadows move, twist inside your chest and it feels like something is trying to rip out your spine. The gurgling, filled with red-hot liquid iron and ink and insanity, is nearly inhuman. But He doesn't flinch. Your vision is fading.
It's terrible. You're dying. You can feel it creeping up, numbing your limbs and dulling your mind, and all at once you really can't seem to make yourself care that He won. There may be peace where you are going now.
But as the world fades, you see that blank mask split open. There are jaws, teeth like razors that drip saliva and shadow. Eye sockets form without eyes. He screeches through the static and all the blood that's left in your body freezes. This thing, it's a monster. Lucifer and Beelzebub and Satan and Belial all bow to his whim and jump on his orders, terrified like mortals because of the madness.
The blackness finally overcomes you. An idea flits through your mind, clear and concise as anything can be in His realm.
Slenderman is the one true Evil. . .
Jaws close over your skull.
There is pain.
There is nothing.
The Game is over.
Slenderman won.
Damn. . . .