Eyes Open

The next thing Troy knew, he was being placed gently on the couch in Nate’s living room. Nate said something that Troy didn’t quite catch – his hearing was still delayed and everything sounded as though it were being said underwater. Troy was only aware that Nate had even left the room because he came back in again.

"This might hurt a little," Nate told him apologetically, and Troy was only just registering the thought as his friend gently took Troy’s injured arm, cutting away the rest of the T-shirt’s sleeve with a pair of scissors, and then gently beginning to wash the wounds with warm water. It stung, but Troy was thankfully still so dazed that it wasn’t as painful as it should have been.

"What happened, Troy?" Nate asked him softly. "You were thrashing around something awful, like you were having some sort of fit. Then you just went totally still ... I thought you were dead, man."

Troy didn’t reply. He didn’t think he could reply. He continued staring up at the ceiling, ignoring everything – his friend’s voice, the stinging in his limbs, the aching all over his body.

"Troy?" Nate asked, his voice growing ever more worried. "Jesus, man, you’ve got some serious bruises here."

Nate gently touched one of the nasty, purple-red welts across Troy’s throat. His friend jumped slightly, but otherwise didn’t make a sound.

"Please say something, Troy," Nate said softly. "You’re worrying me."

Troy looked at Nate with wide eyes, and Nate saw something within them that he had never seen before. He didn’t quite know what it was –he couldn’t put his finger on it – but he knew enough about the look to know that something had changed his friend, and that he was in some serious trouble.

"Just take it easy, then, man," Nate told him. "You want water or anything?"

Troy slowly and painfully shook his head, and Nate sighed, wishing there was something he could do for Troy. He felt so helpless just sitting here.

Troy had resumed his staring mindlessly at the ceiling, and so Nate decided to do the only thing he could to make himself useful – try and find out what they were up against.

Making sure Troy was as warm and comfortable as he could he in his situation, Nate went over to his computer, which was placed in the corner of the living room. The only sound in the room was of the computer whirring and beeping as it started up, but no sound seemed to get through to Troy. He was still staring up ahead of him, his face blank, and his body motionless. Nate just hoped that Troy was moving so little – or not at all, as the case may be – because he was so tired and aching, but he couldn’t help but think that his sudden muteness and his lack of movement was something more sinister. After all, God knows what that creature had done to him. Nate had seen it trying to strangle Troy, but who knew if it was doing something else at the same time? Neither of them knew how this creature worked, and that was what Nate was hoping to find out tonight.

For a long while, the only sounds that could be heard in the room were that of Nate’s tapping on the computer’s keyboard, as he searched various different things associated with the tall man in the hope that he would get a match. Gradually, though, Nate became aware of another sound in the room, and he turned around in his seat to see that Troy had moved. He was sitting upright now, his feet on the floor, hunched forward with an old magazine in his hands. He was staring straight ahead of him, at the wall opposite, and the new sound was on Troy shredding the pages of the newspaper, seemingly without realizing what he was doing. Nate watched as his friend tore a strip from one of the pages, and then subsequently tore that strip into smaller strips and then squares, letting it fall to the floor like some sort of cheap confetti. Then, when the strip he was holding was gone, he would simply tear off another strip and continue.

"Troy?" Nate asked softly, but the other young man didn’t react at all. He just continued staring and shredding, and Nate sighed heavily, worry gripping his chest unpleasantly. He was starting to become scared that Troy had gone mad – he was certainly acting like a mad person.

More determined than ever to find the source of all of these problems, Nate turned back to his searching with new vigour. He typed in some random characteristics of the creature – tall, faceless, business suit – and hit search.

He wasn’t expecting it to have many matches, if he were honest with himself, but all of a sudden the same name was popping up all over the page.

"Slender Man," Nate muttered to himself. He clicked on the first link, planning to just work his way down the page until he had enough information to confirm his suspicions. With the background noise of shredding magazines, Nate began to read.

Another relatively new myth that had been popping up all over the word recently is that of a tall, faceless man wearing a business suit, which has been dubbed by forum users as "Slender Man". Not much is known of the Slender Man’s origins, but records of him have been found as far back as Ancient Egypt, where certain symbols on the walls of tombs of Pharaohs seemed to represent an abnormally tall man in a suit quite unlike any fashion of the time. Despite this extensive history, it is not known for certain where Slender Man comes from, or what he might want. There are debates about the entity’s origins, with some people believing that he is an extraterrestrial being, and others claiming that he is a paranormal entity such as a ghost, and some people even insisting that he could be a demon. There are arguments to support all of these theories, but still no solid conclusions have been made.

Barely anything at all is known of the Slender Man’s motives. He has been linked to many things, being sighted mainly before the disappearance of young children, but he has also been known to appear during terrible fires, or in the aftermath of them. Slender Man has also been attributed to the disappearance of various adults, such as hikers and drifters. Sometimes, these people simply vanish without a trace, but there have also been reports of their bodies being found missing organs, and placed high up in trees miles away from where they originally vanished.

Nate felt himself pale slightly. This creature – Slender Man – certainly sounded like what they had been seeing. However, there was one thing that hadn’t been mentioned, and Nate wouldn’t be able to confirm it until it had been. It took several more pages of searching, reading, and getting steadily more terrified before Nate finally found the fact that confirmed his worst fears.

The Slender Man’s appearance had mostly been agreed upon, the new page read. Records of sightings – whether spoken, written or drawn, and the occasional capture of the creature on film – all show the same sort of thing – a tall man, wearing a black business suit, with what appears to be no noticeable features. However, there have been disagreements regarding one of these common characteristics, and that is the creature’s height. Some people have claimed to see a man around nine feet tall, whereas others claim he has been taller. The tallest he has ever been claimed to be is sixteen feet tall, much taller than any human being could ever hope to grow. This had lead to claims that Slender Man is a shape-shifter who can alter his height depending upon his aims. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence regarding Slender Man’s ability to shape-shift is the fact that he appears to have several extra appendages that he can hide and only show when he needs them. Only a few people have ever seen this, and it had been rarely caught on tape, but descriptions claim that they are like tentacles, of varying widths, the same colour as the creature’s suit. It has been said that, when Slender Man retracts these appendages, there is no evidence at all of their existence.

Nate scrolled down the page to find a black and white picture. A man, presumably a hiker, was smiling for the camera, but unbeknown to both him and the person taking the picture, there was something strange in the trees behind them. Changing the contrast on his monitor slightly, Nate adjusted the screen so he could see the shape more clearly. There was no mistaking it was this Slender Man character, but this time, Nate could see thin, spindly tendrils protruding from the creature’s back, blending into the thinner braches of the trees, spread out behind the entity in a huge, fan-like shape.

The picture confirmed it. This was what they were up against.

Nate turned to look at his best friend again, who hadn’t stopped his magazine shredding. A rather large pile of glossy squares had piled up on the ground at his feet, but Troy was clearly unaware of them.

"Troy?" Nate asked softly. He wasn’t expecting a reply, but at least he had something Troy could listen to. "I found out what it is, Troy. People are calling him Slender Man. He matches what we both saw. Right down to those things he used to grab you. I’m going to go on this forum here, it’s got loads of information about him, and just ask around a little, OK?"

Troy glanced briefly at Nate before resuming his staring and shredding.

Nate turned back to his computer, every single time Troy acted so strangely, he just became more and more determined to get to the very bottom of what was going on, and then perhaps one day in the future they could pretend that this had all just been one horrible nightmare.

He scanned through the forum topics, finding many personal experiences, but also a lot of sceptics. He knew that, on the internet in this day and age, where photo manipulation was so easy, there would be a lot of sceptics, but he knew that he also had a chance of being taken seriously. Plus, he reasoned, he had proof.

Nate picked up his small digital camera from where it lived beside his computer. Only hours before, shortly before he had gone to bed, he had been uploading photos from a night out with Troy, in much happier, less stressful times. If only he had known then what the camera was about to capture now.

He slowly walked over to Troy, not wanting to startle his jumpy friend, and crouched down beside him.

"I’m just going to get a few pictures of your bruises, man," he explained. "I’m going to put them on this forum to add a little bit of credit to the story, because some people will probably think we’re trying to hoax them."

Troy glanced at Nate again, which Nate took as acknowledgement, and he didn’t protest as Nate gently tilted his head up, so he could get a better shot of the bruises. They had definitely gotten worse – they were a deep purple-black colour now, and it was clear that whatever had caused them hadn’t been something that could normally be found in everyday life. They were too thick and vivid, an exact imprint of those terrible tendrils.

Nate took a few pictures of the bruises, and then a couple of the road rash on Troy’s arm and the state of his friend’s jeans for extra proof. All the while, Troy didn’t stop shredding the magazines, and he didn’t react at all when Nate got back up and went to the computer. It would take around ten minutes for him to upload the pictures first to his computer and then to the internet, and then code them onto the forum, so as he waited he watched Troy worriedly.

"We’re going to get to the bottom of this, man," he assured him. "I promise."

Troy paused and stared again, his body trembling slightly. He looked back down at the remains of the magazine in his hands, and then continued to tear at them with new strength.

The ripping became the only sound in the room once more as Nate uploaded the photos to an image host online, and then copied the code over into the forum. Then, he paused, wondering how he was going to explain all of this in a short but effective way. He didn’t want the post to be too long – all he wanted was answers, not people to read a small novel.

Eventually, Nate settled with bullet points explaining what had happened that night, with a brief paragraph explaining the events leading up to it. He made sure that the photos were showing up correctly, and then hit Submit.

All he could now was hope that someone out there would see how serious things were, and not just think that he and Troy were clever manipulators and good actors.

Troy finished shredding the magazine. Without skipping a beat, he picked up the newspaper, and started the shredding all over again.