Eyes Open

The world was still upside down when Nate’s eyes slowly and reluctantly flickered open. He felt his heartbeat quicken as he realized what had happened – he was still miraculously strapped into his seat, looking down at the roof of the car, but what he could see was crumpled and destroyed, and he could smell the strong, bitter smell of gas. He had watched enough reality shows to know that an upside down car was a time bomb that could burst into flames at any moment, and he tried to swallow his panic.

Looking to his right, he saw that Troy seemed to have come off a lot worse. He was lying across the roof of the car, which now made the floor, and for the most part he appeared completely unmoving. Nate swore, and started trying to work out how he could free himself without causing further injury. Finally, staring at Troy’s limp figure got too much, and so, with a lot of twisting and effort, Nate unclipped his seatbelt and thumped painfully down next to the still form of his best friend.

First thing was first – Nate had to check himself for injuries before he tried to help anyone else. He quickly patted himself down, looking for any abnormalities or breaks, and any pain in his stomach. He seemed to have come off lightly – the only visible injury he had was a gash across his forehead, and he could feel the sticky blood dripping down his face. His chest ached, but that wasn’t surprising. Nate couldn’t feel any broken ribs, but he guessed that being locked in by his seatbelt and then dangling there for who knew how long would have probably bruised them at least.

Nate then shuffled as close to Troy as possible, whispering his friend’s name. Troy groaned softly, signalling that he was alive at least, and Nate checked him for injuries as best as he could in the cramped space. When he found no sign of any serious breaks, he started looking for a way out of the wreckage. The smell of gas was getting stronger, and Nate was terrified that the car would go up at any minute. The engine would still be warm, and all it would take was some heat or a spark from the engine to turn the car into a fireball.

All of the windows were smashed out, but Nate wasn’t sure if they could get through them without injuring themselves further. Jagged glass still stuck to the frames and the car’s frame had crumpled, making the gaps a lot smaller. However, the gas was certainly getting stronger, and Nate knew it was a choice between suffering a few more scratches and grazes, or burning alive. He knew which one he would prefer.

He turned to check on Troy, to work out how he could move him in the safest way, but saw with an unpleasant jolt that Troy had moved, and it wasn’t of his own accord. His friend was still limp, very much unconscious at the moment, but his arm had moved above his head, and his hand and wrist were outside the car. Nate scrambled as close as he could, reaching to pull his arm back in, suddenly remembering with an unpleasant jolt the cause of their crash in the first place. As he reached to do so, he saw the black tendril wrapping itself further up Troy’s arm, beginning to slowly drag him out of the car.

"No!" Nate muttered to himself, and he grabbed a hold of Troy’s leg, holding on as best as he could. He knew how strong Slender Man could be, and he also knew that in reality he didn’t stand a chance if the creature really wanted Troy out of the car, but he was determined that Slender Man wouldn’t just be dragging one of them out of the wreckage.

The creature seemed to have realized that it was suddenly meeting resistance, because Nate watched as another tendril, this one thicker, snuck into the car through the shattered windshield, feeling around for what was causing the resistance. Nate huddled up to Troy, rolling over his friend and into the small gap between him and the side of the car, seconds before the tentacle felt over the place he had just been. It paused, and then wrapped itself around Troy’s waist, jerking him towards the empty windshield. Nate threw himself over his friend, clinging on for all he was worth.

Troy twitched slightly as Nate did so. He was coming round gradually, and it was to a very strange series of events. When he finally forced his eyes open, he found his upper half outside the car, and his lower half still inside it. He was suddenly very aware of a tight, constricting feeling in his chest, and with a jolt he realized exactly what it was that was dragging him away from the wreckage.

Looking directly above him, Troy could make out the slowly lightening sky, the tops of trees, and the pale, featureless face of the creature who had nearly killed him only hours before. Troy struggled weakly, suddenly afraid of what would happen if the creature managed to pull him completely from the car. He knew enough to be able to work out that he had annoyed the creature a lot earlier, and he knew that if he allowed himself to be taken by the creature he would not be coming off lightly.

Another tendril, this one thinner but in no way weaker, was wrapping itself around Troy’s legs. Something tugged Troy against the creature, and Troy knew that it would be Nate. However, he also knew that his best friend wouldn’t stand a chance if the Slender Man decided he was going to take Troy. The strange creature seemed to be toying with them both at the moment, enjoying frightening them and stressing them, watching their struggling while all the time knowing that they didn’t stand a chance.

It was taking all of Troy’s energy to struggle even slightly, and he could quickly feel himself losing consciousness again. He didn’t want to – he didn’t know where he would be when he woke up, or even if he would get the chance to wake up. Plus, with the Slender Man so close, he was petrified that he would end up back in that forest with all of those terrible corpses.

This memory caused a new burst of strength to surge through Troy, and he struggled a little more violently, trying to get at least one of the tendrils off of him. However, the Slender Man only tightened his grip and pulled him roughly again, causing pain to shoot through Troy’s entire body. He coughed violently again, blood splattering the grass as he struggled to catch his breath.

His vision was starting to close in around him once more, and his struggling became weaker as he felt the energy leaving him. For some reason, he felt suddenly calm, and he stopped his struggling entirely. It was almost as though his mind had simply given in to the idea that he was going to simply be taken, and as the darkness started to close in around him, Troy heard something – someone’s voice – that he didn’t recognize.

"Hey!" the voice shouted. "Get the fuck away from him! Go on, you bastard! Get the fuck away!"

The Slender Man let out a strange hissing sound, obviously annoyed, and Troy felt himself thump the short distance to the ground as the creature let go of him. As he finally gave in to unconsciousness, Nate managed to scramble free from the car, crawling over to his friend.

"Troy!" he whispered. "Hey, Troy! Come on, man, wake up!"

He shook his friend gently, but Troy appeared to be completely out of it once more. Nate pulled his friend over onto his side, where more blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. Nate was even more nervous of the blood, now. He knew that there would be no way to tell for some time if it was a side-effect of the creature, or if he had been seriously injured internally in the car accident.

Nate glanced up to see why the Slender Man had so quickly given up on its quest to take Troy from the car. There was another man there now, and Nate could see the car belonging to him parked on the road, which was up a small slope. Looking at the trail of wreckage their own car had left on its way down the hill, Nate realized just how lucky they were to have survived.

The newcomer could see Slender Man, there was no denying that. He was still shouting at the creature, deliberately antagonizing it, distracting it. Nate took the opportunity to give Troy a closer look. The sky was lightning now, and one headlight of the crashed car was still working, shining better light on his friend as Nate checked him over for injuries. Troy’s eyelids were flickering as Nate gently patted down his arms and legs, checking for any blood, swelling or breaks. Everything seemed as though they had gotten away with some mild bruising, and some of the cuts left from Troy’s previous encounter with the Slender Man were bleeding again. There didn’t seem to be any massive blood loss, and Nate very carefully checked Troy’s stomach area, making sure it didn’t feel solid or strange in any way. The last thing they needed was for Troy to be bleeding internally. However, this check came up as ordinary as well, and Nate carefully checked Troy’s ribs. If one was broken and sticking into one of Troy’s lungs, it could be making him cough up the blood. Nate couldn’t risk just blaming it on the appearance of the creature.

He had just discovered the relieving news that none of Troy’s ribs seemed to be broken when Troy’s eye flickered open, fixing themselves slightly distantly upon Nate’s face.

"He’s coming for us," he whispered, his eyes wide. "He won’t stop, Nate, he’s not going to stop until he finds us both, until he takes us both ... he won’t stop, he’ll never stop, what are we going to do? What’s going to happen? Why does he do this Nate? Why does he does he hunt us like this?"

"It’s all right, Troy," Nate said softly, stroking his friend’s hair in an attempt to calm him down. "Everything’s going to be fine. We’re going to get out of here, we can lose him, don’t worry. He won’t be able to find us soon, all right?"

"All right," Troy said softly, sounding like a child who had just woken up from a nightmare and was being comforted that it had only been just that – a terrible nightmare.

But Troy knew it was no terrible nightmare. He knew that he would never wake up from this, because he was already awake, and what was occurring around him was real life, pure and simple. He leaned closer to the floor, pain ripping through his chest and stomach, and coughed up yet more blood. It was terrifying to look at – there was a lot of it and it wasn’t just coming out in spots now. It was as there he were throwing up just pure mouthfuls of blood, and Troy didn’t know where it was all coming from, or even if it would ever stop.

There were running footsteps then, and the newcomer yelled over to Nate.

"Get him to his feet, we need to get out of here!"

"We’ve got to move, man," Nate told Troy gently. "Come on, try and get up. We don’t have much time."

Troy was practically a dead weight as Nate pulled one of his friend’s arms over his shoulder, beginning to haul him upright. The other man helped, and together they managed to half carry, half drag Troy towards the car on the side of the road.

"How did you know we –" Nate began, but the other man cut him off.

"Name’s Jeff, I’m the one you were meant to meet. You were running late and I just had a bad feeling, so I drove up the road in your direction for a while and saw that bastard in the light of your headlight."

Nate nearly stumbled and fell as a tendril made a grab for him, and Jeff looked behind them and swore.

"Pick up the pace, this bastard ain’t giving up today."

They reached the car and quickly bundled Troy into the back seat, where he curled up into a ball, still coughing up blood violently. Nate jumped into the passenger’s side and Jeff closed the back door and ran around to the driver’s side, barely even closing the door properly before he put his foot down. He had known they would have to make a quick getaway and so he had left the engine running, and as the car lurched forward and shot through the lightening landscape, he knew he had made the right choice.

"Hold on," he told his new passengers grimly. "I don’t think this will be an easy ride."