Author's Note: It's good to be back! I won't go into too much detail because I could take up pages. But 2017 has been a train wreck of a year for so many reasons. I couldn't write until I picked myself back up first. Now that myself and my writing has improved again, I present to you all lovely, patient readers, chapter ten of Famous Last Words.

Chapter 10: Dark Necessities

It was a long time before anyone spoke. The silence was so heavy and foul that it was like a living creature in the room. It watched them. It knew their secrets. It was the same creature that had been lurking behind them all ever since Summer ended and they began to drift apart. It was the thing that lurked over Melanie's shoulder and caused her to choke on her words until she said nothing at all. The Silence was a greedy creature, never satisfied until it had stolen all the words from the room and it seemed time itself would stop with the slowness. When all you were left with was your own thoughts, Silence ensured that you would have to face yourself.

No one looked at each other. A spell fell over them that only guilt knew how to cast. It was the guilt that comes from seeing all the signs and looking the other way.

"Why does she have to do this?" Toby asked. "Why can't she just kill us? Is she enjoying this?"

Jeff kicked at the words on the floor. "She's basically a living spider goddess... I'm going to take a wild guess that yes, this is how she gets her kicks."

"How did we not see this? I mean... there's no doubting this is The Puppeteer, right?" Tim asked.

"Correct," Laughing Jack responded as he materialized behind them. Everyone jumped. He must have seen a vision of the room. "I have no doubt that this writing is his." He ran his grey hands over the glowing walls and traced the words, sapping the color from them in the process. "I got hog-tied in these threads once. Once was enough to never forget. This is him. What I don't understand is, why take someone else? She has enough leverage. Mel agreed to go meet with her. She's using him for something," he said, turning to them all as calmly as a professor lecturing to a room of students.

"This has gone too far," Brian said. "She's proven it's not worth negotiating with her. This needs to end on our terms."

Jeff turned on Brian. "Well no shit! How can you all be so calm about this? Who knows how long she's been messing with our heads? She's already attacked five of us. This bitch needs to die now, and I'm not waiting for Melanie to sit down and have a cup of tea so I can sit on my ass and wait for a Facebook update from your phone to see if you live through the night." He was glaring at Melanie now. She backed up defensively, forgetting she was already up against a wall. "Oh, you want to make it sound like this is all my fault? This is all happening because I died. I never asked for this."

Jeff inched closer to her. "You sure? Because she sure is showing an awful lot of interest in you and all these superpowers you supposedly have. Why do you have those, huh? Because most of us here went through the same damn process, and you know what we got for it? We got psychosis and enslavement. That was our reward. And you're lying if you say you're not enjoying all of this attention. Suddenly now that you're more than human-"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Melanie asked. Toby had now grabbed Jeff by the shoulders and was struggling to hold him back. "This is a new low, even for you. I don't sacrifice my family, Jeff. I want Moira dead even if it costs my own life and this time I don't get to come back. I can handle Moira. And if I die trying, then at least she won't be interested in the rest of you."

Toby nearly lost his grip on Jeff as he shook his head and responded, "No, no you are not taking her on alone. We're in this together, how it's always been. How it's always going to be," he said with added emphasis. "Why the hell are you two fighting anyways? We have hours left before Melanie is supposed to be out of here or shit goes down. We all go, storm the castle, kill the witch, save the damsel in distress. Nevermind that EJ is the damsel-"

"Toby, get the FUCK off of me!" Jeff yelled as he wrenched his way out of Toby's vice grip. Toby stepped back, astonished. Jeff swore, and Jeff yelled, but never at Toby.

"What the hell has gotten into you man?" Toby asked. He was sweating and panting from the effort of holding back his friend. He wiped a small smear of blood from his lips were Jeff had elbowed him as he waited for an explanation. Melanie was about ready to punch Jeff herself. Why was she feeling like this? She just wanted to fight something, anything. It was like a blindness.

Tim stepped forward cautiously to make sure that no one made any sudden moves. "This is what Moira wants. She's messing with our heads, and she's trying to drive us apart. If we're divided, that's less of us watching each other's backs. And you three are letting her win. Jack is wasting away in the otherworld right now and you three are standing here squawking like a bunch of gossipy women at a luncheon. If he dies because you're acting like fucking children, that's on you. Now if any of you want to be helpful, break up this cock fight and start decoding this mess on the walls before we need to leave." He locked eyes with everyone in the room, waiting for a challenge. Satisfied with a return to the silence, he huffed and walked with heavy steps to the furthest corner of the room.

Laughing Jack sagely guided Brian and Ben away from the battleground so there were less eyes watching them.

"Jeff, I-" Melanie started.

"Don't- just don't. Everyone is going to die, and I wish it could just happen quickly and quietly."

Toby's eyes widened and he took a step back. This was not his forte, nor anything he wished to engage in. Serious topics were generally avoided where Jeff was concerned if all parties wanted to keep their appendages intact.

Melanie was taken aback. "Is that what this is about? Death is bothering you for once?"

Jeff wouldn't break her gaze. It was then that she saw a flash of violet in his irises. He wasn't being possessed, but his thoughts were definitely getting jumbled by an outside force. "We're fighting a losing battle. With Slenderman gone, four of us are now just humans with a whole basket of mental issues. How are we going to fight her? News flash, we aren't, Melanie. Accept that, and choose to spend the last few hours of your life drowing yourself in video games and food like me and at least you'll die not feeling conflicted."

Melanie lowered her voice and stepped forward. The rest of the group didn't need to be brought into this. They were already feeling low enough. If Moira spread any more negativity they could be doomed. "We've already survived so much. I know this is more than we've ever been through, but I can't just accept that we're all doomed. There's something we're not seeing here. There's something she's trying to hide by distracting us with disaster after disaster. She wants us hurting and disoriented so we don't figure this out before the sand runs out of that hourglass. But before we bust down her doors guns blazing, we need to all be on the same side. If we're fighting now, she can turn us against each other in a heartbeat when it comes time to fight her. I've already died once and I'm not afraid to do it again. What I am afraid of is losing the people I love before they're even dead."

Laughing Jack looked over his shoulder with a "where are you going with this? Don't make things worse," expression. She did her best to look reassuring.

"I can't do this on my own. I don't want to fight with you, Jeff. You're not thinking clearly. She's picking apart everyone in this house and trying to target their weaknesses. This isn't us. Jeff, please. We can't split up. Not before we even get a chance to face her. Hey..."

"Thanks for trying. But you know we won't really win."

"God damn it Jeff, I'm trying to be motivating-"

"You need to speak Jeff's language, Melanie! Traaanslaatee!" Ben said. Jeff gave him a sour look before Melanie grabbed Jeff and spun him back around. "No, look at me. Ben is right. Moira is a fucking punk ass little bitch. You want to let some bitch that likes spiders kick your ass?"

The purple quickly receded from his eyes and he shivered a little as he shook off her influence. "Fuck no," he said. "But still... we're always going to be two steps behind her unless one of you is hiding a ridiculous amount of cards up your sleeves," he said, raising his voice to address the rest of the group.

Brian barely glanced up he was so absorbed in deciphering the crazed writing on the wall. Tim looked around as every eye turned to him. "Fuckin A, I need a cigarette. Give me a minute, I'm thinking. I have cards, but they sure ain't kings and queens," he trailed off.

"Anything you have at this point is better than going in like this," Ben said.

While Tim was thinking, Laughing Jack tugged at Melanie's arm and leaned over to whisper in her ear when no one was looking. "Based on what I'm seeing on the walls, I would tread carefully with our new enemy."

"Why doesn't she just try to possess me like everyone else?" she asked.

Laughing Jack's voice faltered the way it did when he was failing to hide something from her. "I don't think it's a matter of whether she wants to or not... I'm concerned that The Puppeteer didn't use names when he wrote that message."

"What do you mean? You aren't saying that..."

Toby glanced over and Laughing Jack had to drop his voice to an almost imperceptible level. "I am not able to draw any conclusions at the moment and it would be foolish to do so. But... when someone is allowed to come back from the other side it means that the fates have taken an intererst in them. Sometimes their life's thread gets tangled with someone elses. Sometimes is loops back around on itself. It's just something to keep in mind as we get closer to this encounter. Don't think about it too much if it's going to distract you from the goal. And don't tell the others. If Jeff is any measurement of the group mood, they have enough on their plates."

Melanie nodded and walked to the main grouping so as not to look overly suspicious. Jeff was trying to massage away a headache in the far corner and Brian was copying down the sentences on the walls. Melanie stood next to him and stared at the writing. She scraped at a letter with her nail and was chilled when a few flakes peeled off the wall and disintegrated. "I know," Brian said. "I saw that too. We need to get this all down. The more strength he loses, the more these words will fade. I'm curious about the references he makes to time but I'm not sure what to make of it yet."

"Alright," Tim said, gathering everyone's attention. "I would be willing to try this if you all think it wouldn't just kill us all before we even left the house. Looking at LJ actually, sometimes the most insane plans made on the cusp of the moment are the best ones."

LJ cracked a smile and raised an eyebrow. "How refreshing. The plans you've all been coming up with are dreadfully dull. I think I would enjoy some madness around here."

Tim cleared his throat and nervously readjusted the collar of his shirt. "I'll cut right to the chase then. We may be short on manpower, but Slender obviously isn't the only Operator in existence. The world is filled with plenty of other proxies and freaky motherfuckers that, well, we've generally avoided for obvious reasons." He paused, obviously uncomfortable at having to be the one to pitch this plan in EJ's absence.

"I didn't know you knew any of the others," Ben said. "I see them around sometimes but- the rest of them aren't like us. Tim, you know they aren't human anymore. Most of them never were."

"I know, I know. But we have hours left. The first issue would be how to get them to fight on our side anyway and not kill us all after. But if we could somehow get around that, I know a few contacts that could get me in touch with some of the... others," he said with obvious disgust.

Laughing Jack looked up as a strange and unfamiliar air enveloped him. "Don't worry about enticing our new friends. I'll take care of that. I'm so curious though, what delightfully sick demons were twisted enough to be turned away from even this family. In the case that Moira predictably rescinds her offer of a one on one meeting we would not want to be overpowered by any minions she sends after us. If you'll look into that... unfortunately Melanie and I should prepare to leave soon."

Tim nodded slowly, apparently surprised at the lack of resistance to his plan. "Okay. It's settled then. Uh... anyone have ideas who I should call first?" Brian and Ben, eventually followed by Jeff, were soon crowding Tim and exchanging contact information for the world's supernatural fugitives. Only Toby remained fixed on Melanie. The sudden knowledge that this could be the last hour they spent together paled his face as he crossed the room to her. His eyes were mirrors that to Melanie showed everything they had been through together and everything they each hoped for the future. They held promises and regrets and secrets as well as a burning love that told Melanie he would use his own rib to stab through Moira's dead heart should his love lose this fight. Melanie's second shadow respectfully stepped aside as Toby wrapped Melanie in a near crushing embrace.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. She knew for Toby everything was too important to put into words for fear of making it somehow less so. He would not break the silence first.

"I will come back. This is just another battle like any other we've had to go through. When I get back... we'll put a charm on the pizza guy like we always do and get delivery," she said. Toby smiled reluctantly as his eyes grew cloudy. "We'll bring out every bean bag and pillow in the house and crowd around the TV. Everyone will fight over the good controller and the bean bag without the rips. We'll all fall fast asleep on the floor and wake up and it will be like a bad dream that's all over."

"Tim and Brian will accidentally end up with their arms around each other and Jeff will get the shit beat out of him for taking a picture. Jeff will somehow end up curled up with a stuffed animal. It'll be just another day. Just another day," he said. His voice said "everything's fine, I'll be fine," though his eyes said it was all an act to carry him through to the end. Melanie nodded and dried her eyes. She kissed him long and sweet and embraced him again before tearing herself away to talk to the others.

Tim was talking to Laughing Jack now with a shocked but intrigued expression on his face. "-you're missing more marbles than I thought if you think I should summon him. That's inviting trouble for the rest of our lives. We can't just make him go away if we call on him. He is going to be someone's problem until the day they die if we go through with what you're suggesting."

Though intensely curious, Melanie walked instead to Ben. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor staring at all the words on the ground. She sat mirroring his small form. For the rarest of moments, he truly looked like a child.

"Do you think you're ready?" he asked quietly.

"No. But that's not the important question is it? We both know how this is going to end," she whispered so softly her mouth barely moved.

Ben shook his head. "They can't understand the words on the floor because they don't want the answer. It's right in front of them but it's too painful to accept. We don't know the why, but we know how. You know exactly how to stop her. It only takes a second. Could you do it yourself this time?"

"I could. Now I need to know if you can do something for me."

"Anything."

"Keep the family together afterwards. Don't let them all fall apart. Don't let Tim smoke himself to death. Don't let Brian fade away into silence. Make sure Jeff doesn't forget how to smile. Make sure Toby has a reason to. And... don't ever forget about LJ."

"I'll do that. You know he's the reason your colored pencils are always going missing? He draws pictures by the dozens and tacks them up all around the walls in the spare room. Some of them are grey, but most are colorful. You're always the brightest thing in them. I think the rest of us will be able to keep going, but don't be surprised when you're not the only one who dies in some way tonight. He would die one way or another. I think he would rather follow you. You should go now."

Melanie burst into tears at how such a small boy trapped in eternal childhood, forced to be a vessel for a monster that constricts his soul, could be so wise and perceptive. The others had swallowed her lie of bravery. But not once could she ever remember being able to successfully lie to Ben. He saw through her thin mask as Laughing Jack did. Ben's face was a contrast of hers. His mask of calm was infallible. He briefly placed his hand over hers before rising. "It would never be the same without you. But it would be more painful if you had never come at all. Don't ever forget where we would be. We would find a hundred Moiras if the alternative was never having met you.

Before Melanie could respond, Laughing Jack had placed his hand on her shoulder. "Mel. It's time to go."