Hey, guys. Welcome back once again.
I'm really sorry to say that this chapter isn't very eventful. There are no fights with Freddy or anything that fun. This is a more relaxed chapter, but all chapters are important to the story in some way, so please still do read it. It does matter to the plot.
School has once again, shoved coursework onto me. For English Literature and History. How butt-hurt am I, huh? :'(
I'll try and not let that get into the way of the stories, but don't be too upset if the updates are slightly slower then usual [not that they're that fast anyway] especially since I'm also writing 'Jeff the Killer: Surprise' at the same time as this story...but I'll finish this no matter what. I know what the ending will consist of and I desperately want to write it. The ending was actually the first thing that I came up with and figured out when writing this story and I must get to it.
Anyway, I'll let you guys read :)
~Ciao
Account 8
Masky's Account
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Jack and I were sat in Ruby's kitchen, using her supper table to both do things of great importance to each of us; my great act of great importance happened to be me reporting back to Mr. Slenderman and updating him on the mission and Jack's act of great importance happened to be reading one of Ruby's biology books, while drooling slightly and making me just a tad bit uncomfortable. I know that Jack absolutely loved eating human organs and simply put, any part of a human at all, but he was so creepy when he acted upon it or he thought about acting upon it; he suddenly became an animal who's only want or need is to eat the first human he sees – no matter what it was that he was eating. Thank God he didn't eat other proxies because if he did, I wasn't sure whether I could be friends with him – or in fact, be in the same room as him.
I held my cell-phone in my hand and placed it against my ear even harder. I was so excited to have Mr. Slenderman praising us all.
"You're doing a good job, Masky." Those words were like music to my ears. "I'm very pleased that you managed to not only find Ruby and explain the situation to her to an extent that she has actually agreed to help you, but you managed to do that all in one night. I would have thought that her being a human, she would have been afraid of you and it would have taken a few days for you to be able to convince her to help."
"Well, sir…" I began. "She appeared to be slightly frightened of us and defensive at first, but she quickly just became curious and simply wanted to know why we were there. She doesn't seem afraid of Freddy and so, she was instantly ready to help us take him down."
"She seems like a great character. I cannot wait to meet her when this is all over to thank her for her co-operation."
This was something that had been on my mind for the majority of the night. Ruby had been the first person to have seen Jeff, Jack or I and not become so frightened that they hadn't listened to reason or listened to us – not that when we all saw humans, we wanted to speak with them. I believed that her experiences with Freddy over the past couple of weeks – not to mention her love for horror movies – had desensitised her from being scared easily or to quiver in fear. To her, we were intruders of the house and nothing more than that and once she knew our real mission, she was all for assisting us. I was actually looking forward to working with her on this mission.
"She is a great character, sir." I didn't want to tell Mr. Slenderman about hers and Jeff's current banter or her personality, since it wasn't vital information for him to know, as much as it entertained me and Jack; when giving these reports, the main objective was to give Mr. Slenderman as much information on the actually mission developments as possible and explain to him the important events. That was all. There were a few things that I was allowed to ask him though and there was one thing that I was desperate to know. "So, I was just wondering how Hoody is doing?"
"I knew that you were going to ask that." There was slight amusement in Mr. Slenderman's voice. He was clearly in a good mood since the mission was going well; if he wasn't in such high spirits, I would've avoided this question and simply called Hoody himself, which I was planning on doing later on in the early evening anyway, when Ruby was asleep and being watched by the others for a moment. "He's on a small mission in the Trenderman Regions. He wasn't too happy about going without you, but he'll only be there for 2 more days at the most."
I smiled slightly under my mask. "I can imagine. He doesn't exactly like Mr. Trenderman that much. I do wish that he could've come with me, but I understand your need for at least one of us with you, sir."
Hoody was my counterpart, my partner in crime and – most importantly – my best friend. He was a being who wore a bright, orange hoody and had these massive, shining, deep, red eyes that were the only thing that could be seen of his face when he wore his hoody up; the rest of his face always appeared to be a pitch-black void with nothing on it, but these two crimson lights, shining brightly. I'm the only other proxy who had seen his actual face and – if I'm honest – he had absolutely nothing to hide it, but for some reason, he felt self-conscious. To be honest, we lived in a world full of monsters. His looks weren't going to alarm anyone.
We both became proxies at the same time. We were best friends before we became proxies and now, quit a few years later – I can't even remember how many – here we are, still the closest monsters in the Under-Realm. He was quiet – in fact he never spoke – but he still has a great amount of care and compassion for those around him; he's one of the most amazing people that I have ever known and he will continue to be my closest friend even when we're on our monstrous graves.
"Just to ask, has he had anymore dreams with Freddy in them?" I asked. I had been wondering this as well. I hadn't slept the night before – we proxies didn't actually need sleep to function and we only actually slept when we were bored of feeling extremely relaxed or lazy – but sometimes, Hoody did like to sleep nearly as much as a human did. I didn't want Freddy to harm him in one of his own dreams while I was gone.
The only proxies being effected by these types of dreams are the half-human proxies. The other proxies consider us human-hybrids and not many of them actually like us because of it; they say that we're weaker because we have human blood inside of us and that we can never be accepted into their society. Jeff, Hoody, Eyeless Jack and I have all proven those monsters wrong and have all taken on jobs set for us by the great Slenderman – one of the only proxies to be close to Zalgo, the leader of our world – and have done our missions well and with more precision than most full-breed proxies.
One problem though is that we are the only one's affected by Freddy and his killer dreams. This is because Freddy had come back to life after being taken care of by human children in the Human-World, however he came back in the Under-Ream because the Dream Gods brought him back. The Dream God's are all based in the Under-Realm and they tend to cause trouble like this constantly – I have no idea why Mr. Zalgo doesn't get ride of them already, but I won't question his decisions. Due to this, Freddy's first victims were those of us young, half-proxies. Jeff was one of the last to be effected by this, but once he became a victim like the rest of us, we received the request form Mr. Zalgo to get rid of Freddy. I'm concerned that he's still attacking those who are still in Under-Realm who still chose to sleep – although, I don't know why they would.
"He hasn't slept since you left." I sighed with relief. "No one has really. Everyone's on high alert and don't want to sleep until you all have taken care of Freddy."
"That was another question that I wanted to ask, sir." I stated.
"Go on."
"I wanted to know how you wanted us to take care of Freddy." Jack peered up from reading Ruby's biology book, saliva still dripping from his mouth. This was something that Jeff, Jack and I discussed last night. Mr. Slenderman had told us that we needed to look into how the previous children had taken care of Freddy, however we hadn't gotten any access to information on that topic. Our only source of help was Ruby, who wasn't even there during the incident and only found out about it from us.
"Once Ruby ad you all begin to work together, you will understand how to defeat him."
I froze for a moment as I took in this unhelpful answer. This gave me the impression that Mr. Slenderman didn't even know how to defeat him, but I had to trust his judgement; he was the one who knew a huge amount of information about Freddy in the first place and he was my boss. I had to listen to him and I couldn't doubt him.
"Yes, sir.'
"Well, I'd better be off, Masky. I have a lot of missions over here to deal with, but good work. Keep it up."
I managed to pull off a smile – not that he could see it – and said "Yes, sir."
After that, Mr. Slenderman hung the phone up and Jack and I sat in silence for a moment; he put the biology book down on the table and started at me with what I would assume was confusion. In all honesty, I was concerned with the attitude that Mr. Slenderman had when faced with this mission; he was giving the three of us too much freedom and not enough actual information. I was confused as to how we were supposed to figure out how to defeat Freddy when we couldn't possibly find anyone who was affected by him in the past. We had no information of the soul survivor of Freddy's previous attacks. They disappeared without a trace and no one in the Under-Realm can gather any information on them.
"So…" He began. 'What exactly did you find out?"
I sighed. "Nothing really useful…"
"I swear…that guy doesn't know how to stop Freddy, does he?"
I flinched. Jack and Jeff had the same doubts as I did, but that was to be expected; they always doubted the Mr. Slenderman knew what he was doing, no matter what the circumstance were, but that was only because those two were cynical. I, on the other hand, was always the one who believed in Mr. Slenderman and the decisions that he made when sending us on missions – I would trust that proxy with my life – so if I doubted him and what he was doing, then something was most definitely wrong.
"I don't know…" I leaned my head on my hands as my elbows rested on the kitchen table, along with Ruby's biology book and my cell phone. "I'm actually not sure that he does. He told me that once we and Ruby begin to work together, we will figure it out."
"Why didn't he just tell us the answer…?" Jack sighed.
"I don't know." I answered bluntly. "It's probably because he doesn't even know himself…or he knows something that we don't and doesn't want to tell us…"
Silence flooded the kitchen as I stared at nothing in particular. Maybe it was me missing Hoody, me doubting Mr. Slenderman for the first time since I had become a proxy or maybe it was me being home sick in general, but I was beginning to feel down for the first time since we set off for this mission. I thought that the mission would be more straight forward than this and that we could get it done in a short amount of time, but I was beginning to get the feeling that we wouldn't return to the Under-Realm for a while yet.
"Masky…"
I lifted my head up and stared at Jack, who seemed to be completely serious for once; this had been happening a lot in the last couple of days. Jack never really had a serious aura about him. He always made sure to at least be a tiny bit jokey when speaking with us all – almost like our comic relief – but recently, that had disappeared and he suddenly wanted to be serious all the time. I wondered whether the pressure of the mission was getting to him.
"What is it, Jack?" I asked blankly.
"I was wondering…" He sat up straight and looked directly at me. I did the same, preparing myself for a very serious conversation ahead. "Ruby is a human. I don't think that Slendy thought about that when he set us this mission. Are you sure that we can…control ourselves…?"
I sighed, not knowing why he was asking this now.
"We shouldn't think about this too much. If we think about it, it will become a problem." I understood why he was asking this, but was confused as to why he was asking this far into the mission; I wondered why he didn't ask this when we were taking off to start this whole endevor. "When we think about our desires, that's when they become too much to handle and that's when we slip up with them. As long as you don't think about it, you'll be fine. Putting that biology book away would be a good start."
Jack stared at the book on the table and the back to me. "You're right…."
"Yeah." I smiled slightly. "We'll be fine…don't worry."
Ruby Johnson's Account
I knew that Jeff was somewhere, but I had idea where.
I sat in the school cafeteria with my group of friends, eating and talking about video games and movies as always; the only difference between this time and the many hundred times that I've sat in this very same seat with these very same students, was that I wasn't speaking at all. Sam, Matt and May sat opposite me as always. Sam and Matt were getting into a heated battle about whether the new Dragon Age game that was coming out soon would be good or not, while May simply smiled and watched; I had to admit that watching those two love-birds argue over things as simple as games was very entertaining and I couldn't blame May for simply watching them. Pat sat next to me, also watching the argument and sipping from a Mango juice carton; Pat wasn't the time to get involved in Sam and Matt's heated debates since he just preferred to watch and complain about how loud they were being – despite the fact that the cafeteria was loud enough with all the other school children shouting at each other. They were just adding to the already existing noise. Liam and Lilith were on the other side of me, feeding each other in such a cute way that I was starting to feel sick; they never got involved with our debates anymore. They always sat with each other acting like a disgusting couple.
All I could do was nibble on my sandwich, wondering how Jeff was keeping watch of me. He had been doing quite an effective job so far, but at least when we were in class, I actually saw him and had a sense of security since I knew exactly where he was, but not know was unnerving. I wasn't about to fall asleep again, so it wasn't like I needed him to wake me up just in case, but it would've been nice to know where he was.
"Hey, Ruby?"
I turned to Pat, a large part of my sandwich in my mouth, flashing my eyelashes at him accidently. He hesitated for a moment and then let out a small laugh and pulled some of the sandwich out of my mouth, tasting some. I went slightly red at this action due to the fact that his hand was so close to my face; the way that Pat sometimes treated me like a younger sister made me feel protected and as if I was always kept safe as long as I was with him, but he had no idea how much it also always made me blush.
"Are you alright, Ruby?" He asked, still smiling and putting his juice carton on the table. "You haven't gotten too involved with Matt's and Sam's argument. You usually love to get in the middle of them."
I tried to hide my now, rosy coloured face by placing my hand on the cheek that was facing him and resting my elbow on the table, my eyes drifting the other way. "I'm fine…I'm just really tired."
"You're always tired nowadays." There was genuine concern in his voice. "Why do you keep staying up so late recently?"
I jolted and turned back to him, my flustered emotions temporarily gone and my pretend smile plastered on my face; if there was one thing I didn't want, it was for Pat to start to worry about me too much. He had a habit of following me and keeping a close eye on me when he was concerned for my well-being, just like when I went out of class to talk to Jeff – not that he knew that I understood why he was really there to being with. It made me happy to know that he was worrying about me to that extent, but at the same time, with Jeff and the others at my house, it wasn't the best time for Pat to be looking around my place. God knows what he would say if he knew about those three proxies being there; it was bad enough that he almost definitely saw Jeff when he followed me to the school reception – even if he was wearing an idiotic mask.
"Um…I've just been really busy with reading and watching shows, that's all. I didn't want to worry you, so I didn't tell you. I knew that you would act like Shaun and would just say that I needed to get to bed."
From the serious face that Pat was making, it was clear that he wasn't buying what I was saying. He was the only one in the group to see through those rare occasions when I lied to them – which only ever happened if I was trying not to worry them – sometimes, having someone around who knows you too well can be a negative thing with regard to getting away with things.
*BEEP* * BEEP*
A vibration in my pocket saved me for a moment, causing me to have some more time to come up with a way to make my excuse work for Pat and most importantly, to somehow make him believe it; unfortunately, the vibration was a text from Mark. I scowled at the phone, wondering how the hell he got my number in the firs place; he had sent me texts before, inviting me to parties and to go to the cinema or a restaurant with him – I don't know why he thought that I would want t hang out with him or why he was so desperate to hang out with me either. The only reason that I didn't block his number was because he would find another way to contact me anyway; he was resourceful like that. Maybe, if he put as much effort into his school work, he would be able to get good grades and not have to be an idiotic jock.
Pat asked calmly "Is it Shaun? Speaking of the devil, huh?"
I sighed. "No, it's Mark…"
I skim-read the message and it read:
"Hey, Ruby :D
It's Mark. I'm having a party at mine at the weekend if you wanted to come with your friends. I would love for you to come ;)
There will be booze and food. Come on. You know you want to."
"No…I don't want to." I thought to myself. He was so cocky that I couldn't stand being with him for more than a minute, let alone a whole night – and at his place. Plus, why did he use the word 'come' in his message so much?
"He's asking if we all want to go to his place for a party this weekend." I stated as everyone suddenly glanced towards me. Sam and Matt had apparently finished their debate after I received the text – or they had stopped it to see what the text was about – May had stopped watching them and Liam and Lilith had pulled themselves away from each other for a moment to know about the message as well. They always wanted to know about the messages that Mark sent to me since they found it amusing how he kept trying to get me to go to these events and I would never go.
Pat exhaled. "Again? Why does he keep inviting us to these parties…"
Sam smiled in my direction, flicking her long, brown hair behind her smooth shoulder. "Well, why don't we go this time?"
Pat and I were the only ones who reacted to this statement by tilting our heads in confusion. The others simply looked blankly at her, simply contemplating what she had just said.
"Why?" I asked, genuinely confused. Sam hated Mark just as much as I did, so why was she suddenly giving into him and thinking about going to his party?
"Well, he won't leave us alone until we go to one." She grinned. "Plus, this way, we can go and get wasted and not have to pay for it."
"I'm up for that!" Matt yelled out excitedly as he high-fived Sam. The two of them seemed to disagree on everything, but all of sudden they were agreeing that going to a party with Mark hosting it was a good idea. I was shocked.
"Actually…" May joined in. "I wouldn't mind going. I'm not planning on getting drunk, but getting to meet new people sounds fun. He doesn't always invite people from the school that we know to these things."
"Yeah." Lilith said as she leaned on Liam's shoulder. "Plus, Mark's place is huge, right? We could have fun." All Liam did was nod in agreement; it wasn't too much of a surprise that Liam was going with what Lilith wanted to do. They were inseparable after all.
I glanced to my side at Pat who was wearing the facial expression that I was also wearing on the inside; it was a mixture of disbelief and slight anger, who expressed exactly how I felt at the time.
"Why would you want to go to his?" He asked in confusion. "He's a prick."
"Free booze, a nice place to go to during the weekend and we don't have to talk to him if we don't want to. Even if he does try and talk to us, we can get really drunk and then we won't care if he sits with us or not." Sam laughed at her own statement. "Plus, he has a nice T.V. and X-Box One. We can just game while we're there."
I chipped in now, not sure how to express my thoughts. "…but I thought that we all hated him."
"We do, Ruby." Matt ate a cookie that was sat at the bottom of his brown, paper lunch bag. "We just want to use his stuff and have a good night."
Pat and I looked at each other, worried about whether we would be forced to go with our friends, even if we didn't want to. We both sighed in unison and spoke in unison.
"Fuck my life…"
