Chapter One

It was a Thursday night. Almost midnight and I had just returned home from a night out with friends from work. We had spent the time sitting around a bonfire having hot dogs and smores and playing truth or dare. During that time the talk about Slender Man came up. I've heard about it before from friends but I never thought much of it. I was raised to believe that such stuff was nothing but pure fiction.

My friend China, her elder sister Lily and our friend Kristine decided to stay and visit for a few minutes. It was the first time they had come over to my place. I live pretty far from everyone else in town. Sure its nice and quiet down my part of town but it sucks when no one wants to drive to come visit me. Much of the time I just go to work, come home, maybe visit my parents, watch TV, or surf the internet. It's a pretty dull life for me.

The girls loved my place. I'm the only one among my friends that has their own house. It was the talk of the town when I first got it. I had a couple guys ask me out but I quickly found it was because they thought they could mooch off me. I've pretty much avoided dating since then. That was two years ago.

"Aren't you scared living here by yourself?"

Lily asked, looking outside my living room window. Like my parents' house its surrounded by forest save for a cleared area which will hopefully one day be a nice backyard. My uncle had cut a path through the forest down to the river where my family had a dock.

"No," I replied. "I got my dog. And my parents are just down the road."

"But still it looks so…creepy outside…"

I laughed and made a scary face. "Beware of the Slender Man!"

Kristine jumped startled and glared at me. "Don't joke like that!"

"Ok. Ok." I said with a grin. Kristine was so easy to scare.

We talked a bit, played with my little dog Abbey and planned another bon fire for next Sunday night before saying good night and I waved to them from the kitchen window as the girls left. I wasn't sleepy. So after tidying my house up and having a shower I turned on my laptop and connected to the internet. I checked out some online games I played and FanFiction and after a few minutes typed into "Google": the slender man. I was surprised by the stuff that came up but I glanced at the clock. It was nearly 2pm. I gave a yawn. This could wait. I turned everything off, climbed into bed and fell asleep.

It was Friday night. I had just finished drinking a Rockstar coffee energy drink which Lily was sweet enough to buy me at work and I was pretty hyper. Energy drinks along with candy and Coke didn't mix with me. I'm already a pretty active person and eating or drinking such stuff was like adding fuel to a fire.

I sat there staring at the "Google" site wondering what to do. Then it hit me. I quickly typed in: the slender man, and began to click onto the first site link that came up.

It was close to 4:30 am when I decided enough was enough. I was starting to crash and was sort of starting to wonder about all the stuff I discovered about Slender Man. I had to admit though I found this character interesting. I was sort of weird. Everyone said so. I liked villains in movies and books better then the heroes. Even though I was raised Christian I found the world of the fantasy, occult and those stuff interesting. I enjoyed watching those so-called real ghost hunting and haunting TV shows just to scare myself before going to bed. But I stayed away from the horror movies. I couldn't handle them. Even those old time ones. Even the commercials of horror movies.

I tidied the house up again. It seemed like I was always cleaning my house up. I wasn't a tidy person too. I checked everything over, made sure everything was turned off and started to head to my room but stopped and stared out my living room window into the nearby forest. It looked so different to me after reading bout how he lived in the woods, waiting, watching, stalking….

"Eeerr," I shivered and turned away. "Just take it easy. It was all nonsense. Just a internet creation…"

I turned the lights off, and climbed into bed. My dog Abbey was curled up on my pillow. I pushed her off and pulled the sheets up to my chin and let sleep over take me.

I was cold. And it was getting dark. I had no clue where I was. All I wanted was my mommy and daddy. I was crying.

My arms and legs were scratched up by the branches and thorns. I was wearing only a thin summer shirt and shorts. My hair which was in pigtails had twigs in them and was messy.

Suddenly there was a loud crack behind me. Scared I turned and looked and saw only a small squirrel. The rodent stared at me until another crack sounded and it disappeared up a tree. There was another crack and another, fear over took my little body and I started to run, stumbling through the undergrowth and tripping over sticks and logs. Something was following me.

I tripped and fell to the forest floor. I was hurting everything. I just wanted my parents. There was a nearby tree, I crawled towards it and curled up against it. My eyes closed shut. I was shaking. The thing was getting closer…

"M-m-mommy…d-daddy…"

"…Shhh…Little one…your safe…now…"

I slowly cracked open an eye and saw a pair of shiny black shoes…