"Wake up."
Masky stood over the small bed, shining his bright light directly into the young Proxy's sleeping face. He watched as he tossed around in the thin blankets, groaning as he slowly sat himself up.
The new Proxy shadowed his eyes with his hand, his goggles and scarf resting on his nightstand. "What is it?" he half spoke, half muttered, kicking his blankets away.
He tilted the flashlight away from his face. He walked over to the nearby lamp and turned it on, lighting the room with a faint yellow glow. "It's time to get up," he said, watching the teenager wrap his goggles around his head.
He let out a yawn. "What time is it?" he asked, his voice becoming slightly muffled as he wound his grey scarf over his mouth.
Masky glanced at the watch on his wrist. "A bit past 5:00," he read. "Looks like we slept in a lot. C'mon, get up," he ushered as the younger one muttered something incoherent yet blatantly negative as he stood up.
"You'd better get used to this," Masky warned, "You're lucky we got any sleep at all. Doesn't always happen."
The new Proxy walked over to his dresser, picking up the two mismatched hatchets that leaned next to it and slinging them around his back. They looked freshly sharpened.
Masky swung the door open and gestured for the other to follow him downstairs. He did.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked, now finally starting to sound more alert as concern began to trickle into his voice.
He shook his head, staring forward down the spiralling stairs. "I've always trained the new Proxy's. Not really a fan of waiting around."
"Oh," the new Proxy said silently, more to himself than to the older man. The two turned to silence, their echoing footsteps their single empty song. But then, the teen spoke up again, now louder. "Wait, have there been other Proxy's besides me?" he asked.
Masky said nothing, his mind elsewhere.
He knew that, if given the choice, he would have nothing to do with this person. Not because he was supposed to be on leave for another 6 days. Not because there was anything more important he could be doing. Not even because he had anything against the boy. In reality, he had nothing to argue, except he wanted to be alone.
No, not alone. That wasn't really what he wanted. But it was the only thing he could have. And now that was gone. Maybe that was why he was so bitter? Would he ever really know?
The two reached the end of the stairwell, and Masky shoved the heavy door open. He glanced behind his shoulder, seeing that the new Proxy still scampered close behind, and continued towards their destination.
"So where are we going, anyways?" the voice piped up again. For a moment, he considered once again staying quiet, but ultimately decided otherwise. He would find out soon enough. As long as he kept the actual surprise to himself a while longer, it would still work.
Masky turned a corner. "You remember how you first got to the realm, right?" he asked.
The new Proxy was silent for a moment. "Um, sort of. I remember being in some sort of area full of trees. The Operator to go through some sort of... hole, I think, or maybe a small cave. And when I went out the other side, I was in another forest, but the sky was all black and I could see the castle through the trees," he reminisced.
Masky nodded slightly. So he didn't understand, or at least not quite. Not a problem. He was used to explaining the realm-jumping system, mostly to the new psychopaths that gained entry to the castle.
"The forest is how we get from the normal realm to this one," he explained. "Basically, the Operator has marked locations all over the world that can be accessed. These places all have spots like holes or tunnels. When you go through them, with the Operator's permission, you'll end up in a part of the forest around the castle. You understand?" he glanced to the Proxy.
The other nodded slowly. "I think so. It's kind of like portals, right? To warp from one world to the other?" he asked, his interest sounding piqued.
Masky shrugged while nodding. "Yeah, I guess," he said. The two reached the front door to the castle. He pushed it open, greeting them with slightly frigid air. Flicking his flashlight back on, he started walking straight through the vast grassy field before them, and towards the forest off in the distance.
With the only source of light held in Masky's hand, the new Proxy was forced to keep close. The forest was a little ways away from the castle, which was instead surrounded by the long, flat land they now walked on.
Masky thought back to all the times people asked him, 'Why would Slenderman surround himself with open field? Aren't trees kind of his thing?' His answer to them, while sometimes not directly told, was always the same.
"Is that a dead body?"
The Operator loves to show off his work.
Masky glanced over to where the other Proxy pointed. Not too far off in the distance was a small heap. While details could not be made, it was clearly wearing a white t-shirt, caked with a basic mixture of blood and dirt.
He rolled his eyes. "What do you think?" he asked sarcastically, still walking straight towards the forest. The new Proxy had no choice but to keep his shaking legs moving, following him into the dark.
Masky frowned. If that was how he reacted to one corpse, then he was going to have fun trying to get him to kill indiscriminately. If he didn't change his attitude fast, he'd be dead within a week, maybe less.
Or worse, he'd become the next Ark. Masky shuddered at the thought.
Finally, the two reached the edge of the forest. The new Proxy twitched violently, more so than usual. Masky kept on walking straight, deep inside the thick maze of dead flora.
"S-so, where exactly are we going, then?" he asked as he glanced around wildly at every lengthened shadow cast.
Masky couldn't help but grit his teeth. Did he really think he was in danger here? Nobody allied with the Operator is stupid enough to attempt homicide on his Proxy's. He sucked in a deep breath, and let it out, trying not to lash out.
As for the question, he stayed silent and continued to walk forward. The glow of his flashlight hardly covered any ground, the dead trees cutting the beam of light into small lines. But the flashlight wasn't for him.
Eventually he stopped at a small clearing, pointing the light up into the treetops. It was then that he decided to answer the Proxy's question.
"We're not going anywhere yet," he said, glancing up to the blank sky. He saw the other Proxy do the same, but he knew he saw nothing.
And then he turned the light off, casting them into perfect black.
"Try not to die," he said, his voice as deadpan as it always was. Silently, he backed out of the clearing, leaving the teen behind.
His vision adapted to the shadows, he watched closely from slight distance as the Proxy reached for the hatchets on his back, grasping them tightly. He took a sturdy stance, but his limbs still shook.
Nearby, the treetops began to shake as the third figure began to creep closer. It wasn't trying to hide anymore. It knew he had an advantage.
Masky watched. It was so easy to find someone willing to kill for him.
