I dare you! : A Slender Story

"Slenderman isn't real!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"Yes he is! I saw him!" Rachel yelled back. Rachel was a sixteen year old girl with long strawberry blond hair and thought she knew everything about the paranormal. Ghosts do exist, but not the Slenderman.

"He was made up for a forum. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Then how do you explain the legends and stories that were told of a faceless man before the forum even did the paranormal photo thingy?" she asked. Thingy? Really Rachel?

"Those are something different! Forget this!" I stormed off leaving an angry Rachel behind me. I had done research on this "Slender man" when I had a dream about him. He's not real. I only dreamed about him because I saw too much fan art.

~~~

"I hear you don't believe in Slenderman," Chris said to me the next day at school.

"What's it to you?" I glared at him. His smiling blue eyes bore through me as I stared at him with my questioning glare.

"If he's not real then you wouldn't mind going into the woods. At night. To find pages just like in the legend. If there are no pages, and no Slenderman you win. If you find all eight pages and see him we win, but you have to come back alive!" he dared.

"Fine, challenge accepted," I smirked. Him and his little friends probably put pages in an unknown wooded area just to scare me. I was going to go there, look at all the landmarks, and find nothing but his worthless attempts at Slender pages.

"Deal, see you tonight, Raven," he nodded and walked to his seat at the front of the class.

~~~

I tapped my foot while waiting in front of a fence. Soon Chris, along with a girl named Katie, and Rachel showed up. Wind blew my black hair in front of my face as they held out a flashlight to me.

"You may need this," Chris said. "Be back by sunrise."

"Plus if you see him tell me OK!" Katie beamed. Apparently a "fan girl" of Slenderman.

"Be careful," Rachel said. I rolled my eyes and nodded climbing over the fence, careful not to get my bag snagged.

There was a slight breeze coming through the air as I took a left down an obvious path. Shining the flashlight in front of me, I noticed a dead tree in the distance. Nothing out of the ordinary of a forest. Walking around I noticed a note. It said "Don't look... or it takes you" along with a strange scribbled person. I had found the first note of the prank. Yet, I wasn't going to allow Chris to win.

I stuffed the note into my bag laughing as I came up with my plan. Once all the notes were obtained, I would hide out until after sunrise. They would get so scared and wonder what happened to me. They'd come looking for me and that is when I would make my move to scare them. It seemed like a brilliant plan at the time...

The wind picked up speed as I followed the path to an abandoned truck with a small building behind it. Making my way around the truck I felt as if I was being watched. Probably Chris trying to scare me. At the back of the truck was another note. It read "Leave me alone" in all capital letters. Picking it up I stuffed it in my back and tried to find the path. It grew cold as I checked around the small building to see where it continued.

A tank truck came up in the light of the flashlight. On the side was a note with one word. "Follows." There was a tree and what looked to be a person on it. Putting it in my bag I continued on my journey.

A large building was soon in front of me. Stepping in through the door, it looked like an abandoned bathroom, yet there were no toilets. A chair was at the end of one hallway laying over on its side. This place scared me more then the woods. Considering that, I gave up on the building and left out a back door to find what looked like old fuel tanks. They were yellow and rusted with age.

Passing them, the presence I felt before grew stronger. It was then I saw another note and picked it up off of the tank. "Always watches, no eyes." Obviously referring to Slenderman. Who wasn't real!

I stuck it in my bag and continued past the tanks along the path.

It was when I found a long tunnel that my beliefs were changed. Inside was another note but without words. Just trees. Yet one of these trees looked kind of more like a tall man. Slenderman. Walking through the tunnel I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders. My heart began to pound and I was so worried that Chris may have been right. The logical side of my mind told me it was my imagination. Nothing was there. Then I saw him. At the end of the tunnel. A tall figure with no face was showed clearly through the light of my flashlight. Of course at first site I thought it was really him then my logical side thought it was Chris. Until he teleported a few feet closer to me. Chris can't do that!

I ran out back the way I had come, and kept on going until I met these huge boulders. On one was another page. "Can't Run." If I couldn't run then how would I get away? I probably looked like a big blue eyed ghost in this forest. My black hair covered my face as sweat went down my forehead. This had to be a dream. All a dream. Then there he was again. Behind a tree. Watching. Waiting for me to make my move. No face. Yet all seeing.

Futile as it was I ran again. My heart pounding against my rib cage as I ran into a huge red pillar in the middle of the woods. Everything around me seemed to spin as I shook with a fear I had never felt before. Circling the giant pillar, or whatever it was, I found another note. It was him and on both sides of him it read "No No No No No No No."

That was it. I had to find a way out of here. They won. I wanted to go home and sleep in my nice, safe bed!

I followed the path hoping it would lead me back to Chris and the others. My legs grew tired from the work as my breath became ragged. This was more running then I did regularly at home. Too my surprise my legs gave out. I fell on my face and tears escaped my eyes. This was the end. I was going to die alone in a forest with a monster with no face. He was behind me. I knew it.

Slowly, I tried to lift myself up. Picking up the flashlight, I turned around only to prove myself right. There he was, so close now. Tentacles came from behind his back causing me to scream and fall back down in my weak state. I continued to cry and shut my eyes knowing the end would come for me soon. My whole life flashed before me and everything I wanted to do. Death wasn't what I was afraid of. It was my loved ones that I was sad about. Never would I be able to see them again.

It felt as though the world was spinning as the tentacles wrapped around me. My heart skipped a beat. Willing my eyes to open, I saw him up close for the first time. I could easily see the business suit and the blank white that a face should have been. A tear fell from my face and hit his tentacle.

When the whole world seemed to come crashing down around me, he reached up with his long arm and wiped away a tear from my cheek. Confusion lit up clearly on my face.

"Wh..what?" I whispered. He didn't kill me. Why didn't he kill me? It was when he pulled me close to him that my confusion grew. What did he want?

My eyes shut, my strength having weakened. There was no way I could stay awake. I just needed to sleep. Even if he did kill me at least I wouldn't feel it, so I let sleep take over.

~~~

The sun shined in through my bedroom window as I rubbed my eyes. Was it all a dream?

My bag lay on the floor, along with a flashlight? Checking the bag I found the seven pages that I discovered in the woods. It wasn't a dream? On my arm, in red marker, was a circle with an X through it. What did this mean?