No Escape This Time.

I trudged through the cabin, dragging my feet as I went. I sighed loudly as I went from room to room, looking for my housemate. The midday light shined into the dark cabin we called home but a lot of it was still hidden in darkness, which only made finding my buddy that much harder. I sighed even louder as I walked into the living room and draped myself over the arm of the couch with my face buried in the cushion.

"Do you ever stop moping like a moody teenager?"

The deep, raspy voice hissing in my brain made me quickly scramble to my feet, my head whipping around to find the source. A smirk came over my face and I crept around the shadows in search of him. "I only mope when I'm bored, you know that." I reached over toward the table for my knife. "Why're you always hiding?"

"Why must you always insist on finding me?"

I rolled my eyes and snickered, moving curtains and waving my knife in the dark corners. He was always such a joker, my buddy. After searching the room thoroughly and still not finding him, I plopped down on the couch and crossed my arms. "I hate hide and seek..."

"I'm only found when I want to be."

I rolled my eyes and slouched, my arms raising higher on my chest. If he was going to be difficult, he was going to get the cold shoulder. I stood up and walked over toward the wall. I pressed my back up against it and marched out a few paces before quickly spinning around and hurling my knife at the wall. A grin appeared on my face as a black tentacle grabbed it out of the air and pulled it into the darkness. "You aren't teleporting, are you?" My eyes turned to slits as I crouched a bit and tiptoed toward the corner.

Suddenly, my back was slammed against the wall and his featureless face was in front of me. "Why would I do that?"

I barely flinched as his tentacle swung the knife and stabbed it into the wall barely inches from my face. A wicked grin tugged at the corners of my scarred cheeks. "Because we're buddies, Slendy!"

While his face remained expressionless as always, I could almost feel him rolls his eyes while I heard him groan. He dropped me from the wall and I looked up at his towering figure. "Must you call me that?"

"What?" I put an innocent, thoughtful expression on my face. "You don't mean 'Slendy', do ya... Slendy?" I grinned widely, so wide that I could almost feel my lips split. He vanished from in front of me in the blink of an eye. "Aww, come on, Slend! You know I'm just teasing you!" I sighed after a few minutes passed without his voice hissing in my brain or any sight of him.



When dusk finally rolled around, I stood at the window and peered out at the woods. It was quiet; there weren't any birds singing or crickets chirping... Just the pure silence that made you feel like you were going crazy while you ears were ringing. Looking over, I saw the nameless man in his suit, towering over me while he looked out the window.

"There are people out there."

I looked out the window to see if he was saying that because he saw them or if it was because of his crazy extra sense of just knowing people were in his woods. That was how he had found me. "I don't see anyone."

It was silent for a minute and I almost thought he wasn't going to reply. Finally, the voice came back, "Of course you don't. They're still a ways off." He stood motionless for a moment before slinking back further into the house. "We can have some fun later."

His comment made me smirk in pure, devilish joy. It was like a game, hunting the people that trespassed in our woods. Sometimes we showed mercy and let them live, but that was rare. The Slender Man wasn't known for having mercy on many, which was why his existence was just a urban legend to tell the kids around the town to keep them from wandering into the woods or for kids to read about on the internet in the middle of the night.

I turned and galloped after him and found him sitting on the couch, his tentacles undulating. I perched on the arm of the couch, facing him with my shoes on the dirty cushions. "So when can we go hunt?"

The sleek, black tentacles seemed to to flicker angrily before slithering into his back until they were gone; how those damned things worked still mystified me. "After the sun goes down and it's dark enough to take it's toll on their minds, with or without me."

The hunt was easy for him. He barely made a sound when he slunk through the woods, plus his teleporting ability just made things worse. I was fast and I was sneaky, but I was still only human; one false move could ruin our fun and I would feel the faceless man roll his eyes before ending it all too soon. I hated disappointing my pal, so I tried my best to make sure I avoided it. I was pretty sure he preferred to hunt alone but only invited me out of pity since he knew I got antsy and stir-crazy in the cabin.

"You're restless."

That statement pulled me out of my thought. I nodded, my gaze darting to my knife on the table, the light from the setting sun glinting off and reflecting on the wall. We needed more supplies for the cabin and campers were the only way to get it. Well, I was the one who needed the supplies. Slendy didn't have the needs humans do. He fed off the fear and blood from the hunts, and I needed the food.

"Calm down. When you get restless, you get reckless. If that happens, the hunt will be over before it even begins."

I sighed and ran a hand through my long, greasy hair. He had a point and I didn't want to ruin either of our fun. I stood up and grabbed my knife from the table, finding my place from earlier and throwing my knife at the wall. I needed something to do so I could relax a little. I needed to be on my game for when the time came to leave the dark, abandoned cabin.

"How many of them are there?" I turned to looked at him, but he was gone. "Slendy?" I called, wondering where in the cabin he was. Getting no response, I walked over to grab my knife. I was almost always alone in the cabin, even when I wasn't really. The nameless man was a solitary guy, he stuck to the shadows and didn't usually say much, if anything at all. But I could feel that he wasn't there; the shadows didn't feel so dark and the air felt lighter. I sat on the couch and looked straight ahead at the mirror at my shadow-bathed reflection. I grinned widely at the creature staring back at me and I waved my knife through the air, watching it follow my every move.



There hadn't been any light in the house for a while now and I still hadn't heard from Slendy. I paced back and forth in front of the couch, my eyes only adjusted enough to the darkness inside to make out the shapes of the objects around me. Suddenly, the objects' outlines were gone and I stopped. He was home.

"Let's go."

I nearly leapt with joy. I snatched my knife off the table and tiptoed around the room, waving my hands out in front of me to make sure I didn't bump into anything on the way out. Outlines returned and I was able to walk out of the cabin a little easier. Once outside, the cold breeze blew my hair back and the thick smell of damp earth assaulted my nose. In the distance stood Slendy, barely lit by the starlight in his fine, tailored suit with his tentacles writhing angrily behind him... A horrifying sight to anyone not used to it. He was a true inspiration.