...this is what you get...

I saw it.  Tall, thin, and wrong.  In my latest dream.  Outside her building.  I've seen her looking out the window when I call.  Already tried once, hope she saw him in time to run.  Calling more, in case she picks up. 

This Is What You Get

If you break your ribs, it hurts to breathe.  I can't sleep worth a damn without medication.  The dreams...they don't help.  Without the medication, the memories of the city, being pulled through it...I wake up in a cold sweat.  The medication doesn't stop the dreams, though.  It just stops me from waking up easily.  Blurred images of campus, of Operator symbols.  Like my brain is mocking me for not being able to keep an eye on the Roommate.
Meanwhile, I've been spending time going between bed and the couch.  Ribs are slowly getting better.  Totally new weird things going on.  It scared the hell out of me at first...some of my stuff is being moved.  It's not the way I remember it, and I thought for a second I'd wandered through the wrong Door.  Nope.  Apparently I have little housecleaning goblins.
Because housecleaning goblins are a better thought than the Nightlanders.  They're associated with the City, so it's not a surprise if they finally found me.  I haven't seen any, though.  The electrical system in the apartment isn't great, so the lights have been flickering a bit all year.
Unless they're why the lights have been flickering all year.  Have I managed to completely miss a Nightlander infestation in my own apartment?  I'm completely unqualified for this shit.

For A Minute There, I Lost Myself

I've been dreaming again, since I got injured.  Different from how I remember dreams feeling, though.  This is more like I'm being dragged along somewhere.  Always through the City Without Shadows, and then looking at those yellow Operator Symbols.  I suppose it makes sense.  Major shit has been going on, and I can't get in touch with The Roommate, and now I can't even keep watch for...

Okay, I guess that betrays my real motivations.  I want to observe, because I want to help.  Sure, I'm terrified of actually being caught up in this again, and killed or worse...but I want to help.  I've been lurking around hoping to catch sight of the Thin White Duke stalking The Roommate, but what was I planning on doing?  Just observing as he murders someone else?  Tackling him and calling the cops?  I need a better plan.  How the hell do you fight these things?

The Panopticon has a plan.  It's not a good plan, but it's something.  They think the Slender Man is primarily an antagonistic meme, a sort of insanity virus.  At least, that's what I'd seen before.  Bentham's crowd is different from the others.  Different symbol, and that group doesn't seem entirely convinced that Slender Man is all in the mind.  Probably all the corpses, and the evidence.  They seem to be under the impression that he's a tulpa, not an uncommon theory, actually.  Doesn't make their plan any less ridiculous.  Since ol' Slendy is powered by belief, they try to get rid of all evidence that he might exist.  Including us.

Picked this up from Michael's story.  Apparently Bentham picked him up, flashed a badge, and pretended to be from some kind of X-File bureau.  Michael's actually met real NSA agents, though, something to do with the mathematical models at the heart of this whole mess.  Bentham just gave the wrong vibe, and seemed too willing to believe Michael's insane story.  Talked about how vital it was that it was kept secret, to keep 'civilians' safe.  At this point, Mike was pretty sure he was going to end up shot in the woods somewhere.  So, he jumped out of the car and ran for it at the next light.  Managed to pick up his Vespa and find a place to hide out.

Useful fact:  Burn Notice is a good way to learn a lot about the spy trade.  Corollary to previous useful fact: watching Burn Notice will not actually make you a spy.  I didn't spot the car following the bus I rode to the small hotel to meet Michael.  Didn't notice it pulling into the hotel parking lot when I got there.  Was, in fact, rather surprised when Bentham burst through the door with a pistol drawn.

I'm a pretty big guy.  And apparently something about me when I was running at him scared the hell out of Bentham.  That, plus the element of surprise, let me knock him over with a flying tackle without getting shot.  Michael scrambled past me while I was still wrestling with Bentham, grabbed the gun.  The agent, naturally, has better training than me...I ended up on the ground in pain, while he started chasing after Michael.  But, Mike was already on his Vespa and away.  I started running...Bentham got in his car, gunned the engine, and drove straight for me.

That's when everything went black.  Not when he hit me...I remember that.  It happened before I felt the impact.  Everything went dark, I stood there, then I felt a pain in one side, and got thrown violently in the opposite direction.  I woke up in the hospital, with cracked ribs.  Damn lucky...or something.  No idea why I'm not dead.

What The Hell Am I Doing Here?

It says it's been thirteen days since my last post.  I answered Michael.  In retrospect, I wish I hadn't.  I want to find out what's going on, spread the information around.  I don't fucking want to draw the attention of these weird...things.  I try to stay objective, even if I'm not very good at it.  Trying to help Michael...that compromises my objectivity.  And, apparently, gets my ribs cracked.

Despite taking so long, it's a pretty simple set of events.  I got back in touch with Michael, took a little while to convince him to meet with me, talk about what he'd seen.  Sure, email could give me the basics, but I wanted to see if he was affected by the same strange memory issues that I'd been observing.  Eventually he gave me the address of a shitty motel, one that would apparently take cash and ask no questions.

Bad signs right away.  Operator symbol was crudely scratched into the door of his room.  Not the same style as whoever is doing it around campus, though.  Most likely his own work...though when I asked, he didn't know he was doing it.  No surprise, in retrospect.  Memory loss is not uncommon in Slender Man encounters.

I'm pretty sure that's what he's dealing with.  He says when Dr. Ellison walked into the office, there was another person in there.  Tall man, in a suit.  Said he grabbed the doctor, lifted him effortlessly, and sliced him apart.  He wasn't clear on how the doctor was cut up, since Slendy's hands were busy holding on to him, but the results speak for themselves.  Michael was frozen there, in terror, until Slendy dropped the pieces of the doctor, and touched the desk.  That's when the fire started...

Something new to be afraid of finally got Michael's legs moving, and he sprinted out of the building.  And, as some of the community seems to know far too well...running away works.  At least for awhile.  He even tried to call the police.  Hell, maybe he succeeded, and the dispatcher is on the Panopticon's payroll.  All I know for sure is that the only official to contact Michael called himself Agent Jeremy Bentham.


I'll post more later.  Because, obviously, we haven't gotten to the bit with the violence and injury yet.

His Voice Is Like A Fridge

Michael's still around, somewhere.  I got an email from him.

What the hell did you try to warn me about?  What do you know about Dr. Ellison's research?  If you're still there, stay away from Agent Bentham, whoever he's pretending to work for.  I can tell you what happened, but I want to know it's you answering this.  Tell me about the front cover of the notebook you brought me.  

I don't remember an Agent Bentham.  The only person I saw that wasn't a cop was the guy in the other room they kept consulting with.  One-way mirrors aren't all that useful if the lights in the interrogation room keep flickering.  Now I have the choice of looking into this guy's existence, or keeping my nose out of it.  Maybe I'll decide once Michael answers again.

Making Me Feel Ill

First day in a week it hasn't been raining.  Spent most of the evening searching for Operator symbols around the dorms.  Found quite a few...but didn't take a picture, as flash photography while lurking outside the dorms would draw attention, and give kind of a creeper vibe.  It gave me time to think, though, about Occam's Razor.  Odds are that the person being pursued, making chalk marks, isn't a second individual.  The person most likely being stalked by the well-dressed abomination and making all those marks is probably the dead girl's roommate.  Too bad I've got no idea what she looks like, and no answer from the number in the student directory.  But then, with cell phones, the student directory is one of the most useless things ever.

And then we come to the good news.  I got a few minutes alone with my professor's computer.  Unfortunately, all I found was the email sent to the tool mark analysis expert.  Turns out to be enough.  Here's the short version:

• No break away spur.  Dismemberment with a saw or axe always leaves a point where the bone isn't cut, but simply breaks at the very end, not unlike cutting wood.  
• No clear striations on the surface of the bone.  Which would suggest either a ridiculously fine cutting instrument, or a single cut with something so sharp that it barely slowed down.
• Slight warping of the bone surface at the cut.  I have no idea what the hell this indicates.  Photo actually looks a little like the bone is melted.  Flesh just looks shredded.

Overall, fucking weird.  Something literally went through the meat and bones like a hot knife through butter.  No evidence of burning on the bone, and melting isn't evidence of anything clear because bones don't fucking melt.  And to paraphrase Holmes, "When you have ruled out the impossible, you've ruled out the evidence, in this case.  Damn, I've got nothing."  I've read in a few blogs that when Slender Man touches you, it can cause injury simply because he's not part of the same dimensions that the rest of us are.  Is that what this is?  

This Is What You Get

I said last week that no one seemed to know about the body being found.  That's mostly true, there's still no news.  But rumor?  Oh, the rumor mill is active.  Ask someone directly if they heard the story about what happened to Dr. Ellison, and they know he's missing.  They don't know anything else.  But let them start speculating, and the ideas always seem to match up with the truth...a friend of a friend heard they found his head in his office, and someone corrects them, tells them it was in the woods.  Sure, they admit that all that is probably bullshit.  And then they talk about the government setting fire to his office to hide the secret research he was doing.

Nobody seems to know that what they're saying is true.  Meanwhile, I think I might need to bend the rules a little bit.  My professor had to miss a day last week, to do tool mark analysis on bones.  Didn't realize it was important until the class today.  Tool mark analysis is most useful on dismembered remains.  Which means somewhere in my professor's notes are very likely to be details on what's left of Dr. Ellison.  Was he sliced up by something unnatural?  Was he sawed apart to stop him from reanimating?  (Thanks Proxiehunter)  None of these are good answers...but asking stupid questions that might get somebody killed seems to be what I'm about.

Tried to call the dead girl's roommate this weekend, no luck.  I've been observing the general area around the dorms, though.  It's been rainy, but I've seen quite a few smears of yellow chalk that might have once been (X) symbols.

I've Given All I Can, But We're Still On The Payroll

The timeline, as I understand it, culled from rumor and police questioning.  Early last week was the last time Dr. Ellison was seen.  Apparently Michael's been missing since that Wednesday.  Thursday morning, Dr. Ellison's head was discovered in the woods.  By the time I was questioned, they'd found the rest of him, more or less.  I guessed from his research that it might be the Empty City.  This isn't the City.  Nobody finds a body if the City gets you.  I've been dismissing shadows as paranoia...but what if it's the Nightlanders, crawling around the hallways?  Escaping from the Doors that his research opened?

But they terrorize.  They punish.  They may break someone's neck in anger, for disobedience, but I've never heard of the shadow men ripping someone apart.  And what the hell is up with the fire?  Are they really trying to conceal Dr. Ellison's work?  Was it dangerous to them, somehow?  Are they some kind of puppets of the City itself?  

And speaking of concealment...no news on the dismembered body, at all.  It's a fire and a mysterious disappearance.  Might be the Panopticon at work...but nobody seems to even want to talk about what happened, or speculate.  It's actually starting to remind me of how people react when I ask them about the murder last year.

And if that's the connection, what the unholy fuck does Tall, Dapper, and Dangerous have to do with any of it?

I've Given All I Can, It's Not Enough

When the world is insane, sometimes you have to lie to the authorities.  Especially when they don't have any real clues or suspects.  But the lying comes later.  I'll start at the beginning, last Thursday.  Police and CSI in the halls of the engineering building.  I introduced myself as a student who'd just gotten out of my Forensic Anthropology course, and was interested in investigation procedure.  Some bullshit about understanding if there was any kind of problem, yada-yada, not wanting to get in the way, and I completely failed to be let anywhere near the scene.  What I did have was a conversation with a law enforcement officer responsible for keeping people away from the scene.  Within sight of the scene.  Though not the original scene, as it turned out.

The place I was watching them investigate was Dr. Ellison's office.  I saw no initial signs of trouble from where I was, but overheard some other gawkers mention he'd been missing for a few days.  My immediate thought was that his research had continued, with Michael Ng's help, and had drawn the attention of the City.  It was easy to imagine him opening the door to his office, and walking off the map completely.  I was starting to look around, worried that the City would want me back, since it had already been here...when they brought out the desk.  

Apparently a tenured professor gets quite a large, impressive desk.  It must've been nice, because it was still quite an impressive piece of work, even as a charred husk.  They carried it out in two pieces, the fire seemed to have started in the middle and burned through the most there.  I asked why this wasn't an arson investigation, and he told me they hadn't expected a fire.  Which told me pretty quickly that this wasn't the primary point of investigation.  So I tried to find out more.  

Obvious advice time, runners, researchers, observers, and miscellaneous troubled individuals...when there's an ongoing homicide investigation, and strange things that puzzle the detectives are already afoot, it does not pay to be too interested or insightful.  It really doesn't pay to be the one to ask questions about the other missing person associated with the case, or the research that was destroyed in the mysterious fire.  Unless you like those rooms with the one-way mirrors and the uncomfortable chairs, and having to wait for hours for the police to question you.  

Finding out that the last people I talked to about the Empty City had mysteriously vanished had me a bit jumpy.  Being stuck in a small room with a flickering lightbulb and the shadows jumping around and only a single door to leave by didn't really help either.  The good part is, being completely innocent in any rational way will get you off the hook.  Eventually.  While I was being questioned, I found out about the first crime scene, and the bloody mess that eventually brought the cops and the crime scene guys to Dr. Ellison's office.  Breaking the story here, I'll tell you what I was able to learn within a day.

It's Just Like Watching The Detectives

Class ended half an hour early. Police and men in suits in the halls. Looks more like an investigation than an emergency. Will try to find out what's going on. Will post later.

Gonna End Up A Big Ol' Pile O' Them Bones

Been busy.  Osteology quiz, so spending my free time studying instead of bugging Math TAs.  Have left small squares of electrical tape out of normal line of sight on the doors I'm supposed to pass through on the way to class.  Useful so far, learning the layout, counting steps.  Still a creepy building.  There's a strange noise in the halls when I'm alone, like wind, but not quite.  The only word that really describes it is "susurrus," something I had to dig from the depths of my vocabulary.

Two pieces of dubiously good news.  First is that I got a look at the summer dormitory telephone listing, found the number for the roommate of last year's probable Slender Man victim.  Second one, take a look:

Yellow Chalk is back.  On the upside, it's someone I might be able to help, or learn from.  The downside is that where there's a runner, there's almost always something to run from.  Remembering the trouble that none of us can get away from really brightens the fuck out of my day.

Arrest This Man, He Talks In Maths

Paranoid examination of the math department has been delayed.  It turns out that Michael Ng, graduate student and teaching assistant for Business Math or whatever it is, has office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3PM.  A perfect time to visit and ask about his notebook and what he meant about the gates.

He seemed startled when I walked in, panicky almost, until I spoke up.  Maybe something's already been threatening him?Tried to kick me out since I wasn't in any of the classes he graded for.  When I told him that I'd seen something familiar in the notebook, that caught him.  He was too curious to make me leave.

Which brings me to the question of how you tell an insane mathematician from the regular kind.  I recognized the word "fractal" in all the babbling, and some of the rest seemed to maybe be about theoretical physics?  I don't know, really, Anthropology isn't the kind of science where you need much math beyond statistical analysis.  What I understood is that Michael was working on the calculations in the notebook for Dr. Ellison, his boss.  Helping to check over some of the professor's research.

Long story short, I have no clue what the fuck he's talking about, but it's apparently really exciting.  Probability math and chaos theory.  It's shown an amazing ability to predict a number of near-random events, like weather and urban growth patterns.  Except, sometimes, it just can't.  At certain unpredictable places and times, the predictions fail, and form what he called a Fractal Probability Loop.  Which to me just sounds like a cereal for math geeks.  I'll quote his explanation:  "You can't find an answer.  Every prediction's margin of error is an imaginary number that trying to correct for leads you into a different prediction, but there's another imaginary number that pops up, and so on to infinity.  Like pi.  No, not pie, 3.14159 etcetera.  It never ends, and we don't think these errors end."

So I brought him back to the gate question.  He said it was from a dream.  He'd been working on the problem way too many hours, and was starting to see the numbers in his sleep.  When he fell asleep, he saw a hallway full of doors labelled with imaginary numbers.  (Note to non-math people, I don't mean things like levenge, or bleem, or that one mathematical SCP, I just mean numbers useful in calculations despite having no real-world equivalent...square roots of negative numbers, and things like that.)  Every time he went through a door, he found himself in a different universe.  Then he got lost, and it started to sound like he was describing a nightmare.  A growing silence, nothing but still air, light without shadows, shadowy shapes chasing him through the doors.  He scribbled that phrase on the notebook after he woke up, terrified.  He told me he planned to see if any part of it might be a useful message from his subconscious, to help with the research.  He hasn't done that yet.  I think he was too frightened to remember and try to use it.  He claims he just forgot.

I told him it might be better not to look into it.  That if it gave him nightmares, maybe it's something he wasn't meant to know about.  Because avoiding things man was not meant to know is EXACTLY why I started actively searching out Fear activity.  I can't expect any less from a scientist...looks like he'll be pursuing some new avenues of research based on his dream.

I don't think I made things better.

I'm Not Sick, But I'm Not Well

Nothing left behind by the class before us today.  I checked, apparently the class is one of those Math for Humanities Majors type of courses.  I doubt any of those guys even know half the symbols in the notebook, much less the math.  And if it does belong to one of them, it's weird enough to look into.  Maybe the TA?  They usually sit in front of the class, so it would be the right desk.

On the "Sarcastic Observer is an obsessive-compulsive weirdo" front, I've been keeping track of the layout of the building, and nothing seems to be added or missing yet.  Okay, just to step back and recognize that I know how crazy I am...I am keeping an eye on a building, in case it makes any sudden moves.  Maybe psychological counseling actually is a thing that I should do.

Not yet.  If I end up talking about the source of my paranoia, I'll look delusional, or schizophrenic.  If the City is out to get me, I'm not crazy to keep an eye out for it.  And the Door I found on campus was on the same building that I'm in now.  Not sure if it matters.  I think I'll have to take some time after class tomorrow, give the halls a proper going-over.

Is This A Test? It Has To Be

New building.  Phobia of getting lost, and of unknown doors.  BIG FUCKING FUN, LET ME TELL YOU.  Turns out we got moved to the math department for a bigger room, and that's why we're not in any of my usual places on campus.  So I'm wandering small hallways, counting doors.  Doesn't help that it's an old building with weird acoustics.  Navigating the place has me so paranoid that I keep thinking I spot people behind me in mirrors or windows.  When I look straight at it, there's nothing there, though.  It's worse than yesterday, but maybe once I learn the place I'll get better.  Otherwise I'm going to have to see the campus shrink, or something.
Speaking of creepy, I found a notebook under my desk.  Turned it in to the department office.  Looks like mostly higher mathematics, but written on the back was "THEY ARE NOT MISTAKES, THEY ARE GATES"

I Woke Up In A Soho Doorway

School's back in.  Forensic Anthropology class should provide useful information and possibly access to investigate some of the...messier fears.  And if nothing happens, it should at least stimulate the part of my brain that somehow still enjoys creepy things.
Class is in a section of the building I haven't spent much time in before.

I Linger In The Doorway

So, if I think about it, one of the worst things that can happen has already happened.  A Fear got me.  And now I'm fine.  It's time to be overconfident now, so I can get myself killed!  Except hell no.  Still being careful, still hiding from the Panopticon.  The good news on that front is that I've seen no sign of them near my house.  The bad news is that their stupid flyers have started showing up on the student bulletin boards.

But that's something to worry about when classes get back in, for summer session.  For now, let's talk about the City.  Too many blogs end there, in surreal rambling.  Sanity slippage and very little chance of escape puts us in a situation where almost nothing is known of the place.  I want to change that.  We can't fight if we're ignorant.  Hell, we can't even run, if we don't know what we're running from.

A caveat, to begin.  This is my personal experience, months ago, seen through the lens of mildly frayed sanity.  Don't trust my information if you have anything better.  Let's begin with the first mistake.  You've gone through the wrong Door.  Normal situation, you don't notice for awhile, or you notice immediately and panic.  Do not panic.  Especially do not run.  Vitally important, DO NOT FUCKING TURN AROUND.  Once the door has closed behind you, it won't take you home.  Most doors in the City behave like this.  Let them close, and they won't lead to the same place as before.  Doors with windows, glass doors, that kind of thing, are a different story.  Nothing in the City seems to change while it's being observed.

And that's the key that will get you out, if you're lucky.  The better you are at keeping track of where you've been, and where you are, the less the City can shift on you.  The City is a parasite on reality, and the first few places I found there had a lot in common with the place that I left.  Most of the time.  I live in a small town, and for the most part the City followed a similar theme when I was there...except for one door, which opened onto a subway station.  Obviously, these doors just take you deeper into chaos.  Avoid them, if you can.  Stay to what you recognize.

When trapped anywhere, starvation is always an issue.  Proxiehunter and any number of runners have great advice for living on the streets, and that probably applies in the City.  There are a few abandoned shops, if you're willing to trust the food.  Assuming the City's copy of the place contains food.  I avoided eating it, the legends of consuming food offered in Faerie scared me off, at first.  The city's not as empty as the name would have you believe.  I heard pigeons, occasionally.  Clubbed a crow to death with a lucky swing.  And, of course, good old Rattus norvegicus has done what it does with all cities.  I'm going to assume that's what I heard scuttling around, anyway.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to end it here.  Whenever I try to think too hard about how I got out, I get a splitting headache.  It's worse if I've been thinking about the city before then.  Basic escape strategy...go to the places that are more like the real world.  Home is usually the best target, but anywhere you can remember in near-photographic detail is the right idea.  The right path puts more things back in their proper place, avoids letting the random drift of change in the City take you further away from reality.

That's about all I can offer.  I never saw the Nightlanders.  No shadows at all, actually.  There's no easy way out, and I can't really communicate all the little clues I learned to notice.  I have the sense that I only scratched the surface of that place, that thinking of it as a city only scratches the surface of what it is.  When I slept there, I dreamed of what I'd find if I went deeper into the chaos, closer to the center of the City.  I remember the idea of a vast abyss, deeper than the universe.  Happily, I don't remember my dreams much at all, anymore, since I got out.

Don't Stop Believin'

I am no fucking hero.  I'm still tempted to file the City away in my mind as the worst nightmare ever.  Maybe ignore the Operator symbols.  Leave it all alone.
But, hell no.  I'm going to investigate that suspicious noise outside, in the dark and stormy night.  The escaped lunatic from the mental institution down the road just makes it a little more challenging.  That, and six months of nothing weird happening couldn't get it out of my mind.  Why would stopping now be any different?
Besides, I'm betting cowardice in the face of the Fears is a recipe for not living very much longer.

Been Down, Isn't It A Pity

The City exists.  The Panopticon tried to hide it.  I have photographs.  This realization has been creeping up on me.  When the impossible happens, your mind wants to disbelieve it, in spite of the evidence.

Fuck this shit, I know know what happened, no matter how much I hoped I was actually crazy.  I mean, I probably am a little crazy, but my sanity was at least nailed down a little more solidly before November of last year.  Creepypasta, a long hallway, and a shadow I thought was Slender Man...I mentioned that already.  Freaked out, decided to duck into the computer room and smack the light switch.  Wrong door.  Wrong Door, really.  The light didn't come on.  And then it wasn't the right room.  And then there was another door.  I wasn't on the proper floor of the building.  I wasn't near my apartment anymore, didn't know any of the buildings.

It got worse.  Much worse.  Days of fucking worse.  Are the Convocation edible, or do pigeons and ravens manage to get lost in the City too?  Whichever it is, I caught one.

There's a pattern there.  I've read about the City being alive.  I think it's a parasite.  Parts of the world become part of it.  It connects to them, copies them.  No door leads out of the City, they say.  Nothing ever comes back.  Unless the City wants to let you go.

I don't think that's the case.  I recognized pieces of everywhere I went in the City.  Not that I went far.  It's not random, the places it uses.  I only traveled a block, and it all still looked a lot like home.  No people, though, and a weird kind of light that doesn't make shadows.

It's like there's only two real directions there.  Chaos and order.  Meticulously look for a way out.  Meticulously observe your surroundings.  Maybe a borderline case of OCD helps.  Getting out made it a hell of a lot worse, I can tell you that.

But one night, long enough to get hungry again after the corvid, I found my way to a Door, in a long hall. It was across from another door, a closet, and that door was six inches from a third door.  An open door led to a laundry room.  It matched perfectly with the place I'd left.  And when I opened the Door again, I walked into my computer room.  The light switch worked.

If I don't know exactly where I am at all times, I worry I'll find my way back to the City.  Little rituals help me trust my memory, help me keep everything orderly.  Things were normal long enough that I started to think that the worsening of my obsessive behavior almost overnight was just stress.  The final project that semester was a bitch, after all.

But, I had to check, just to be sure it was all my imagination.  And it turns out that this shit is real, and I am in no way prepared to deal with it.  Consequently, I am freaking the fuck out, and my mask of competence is slipping.

So, Proxiehunter, that's why I'm pretty sure the obsessive behavior isn't EAT.

Pressure

Two weeks at home before summer term starts.  That's two weeks of safety, which I suppose I should appreciate.  Two weeks in a place where I know the number of doors.  I know the hall closet is six inches from the bedroom door, and that the laundry room door is never closed.  It's also two weeks in which the Slender Man can stalk the person with the yellow chalk.  Not that they're likely to come back over the summer.  If you're being stalked, why not flee home, possibly to another state?  How many victims know that you can't really escape the Fears, once you've gotten their attention?  I suppose they all do, eventually.

Yeah, that was cheerful.  Way to keep your spirits up, self.

I can't just sit here and ignore Those Which Go Bump In The Night.  I suppose since there's nothing to watch out for, I can at least do some research.  See if I can find out anything about the Panopticon, maybe work on getting a Freedom of Information request in about the dead girl.  That, and keep an eye on the Runner blogs.  Always a chance to notice something that was missed.  

Watching Him Dash Away, Swinging An Old Bouquet

My self-appointed Observer status is now on self-inflicted probation.  Three weeks I've been glancing at this picture when I post, or check for comments.  Three weeks in which I could have been searching for the person making the operator symbols, instead of stumbling on one the very last day before everyone leaves for the summer.  Ladies and gentlemen...look and see shit that I completely missed, zoomed in for ease of observation!   

Operator symbol.  Yellow chalk.  Three motherfucking weeks.

At least no one died.

Yet.

That I know of.  

Shit.  

Isn't That The Way They Say It Goes?

On my way to my final exam.  Last day of classes.  I spot this:

Sorry about the quality, it's a quick snap while I was in a hurry, looks like my phone case got in the way.  Something done in chalk isn't unusual.  There's always one thing or another drawn on the sidewalks in public areas at the college.
This was closer to the dorms.  Someone's drawing Operator Symbols on the sidewalk, recently enough that the rain hasn't washed them away.  Those things are usually the sign of a runner, or someone going crazy/proxy.  And that person is likely to be going home tomorrow.

Needless to say, I was not fully concentrating on my final.

Edit: Since about half of these observations are visual, I've tried a bit of code to allow you to zoom in on pictures without clicking.  Comment if you hate it.

Spy, Spy, Pretty Girl

It's not as easy to forget about the things that lurk in the darkness as I thought.  Part of it is that I'm working on a report based on my Slender Man research.  It doesn't look like it, of course.  It looks like a demographic study of crimes reported, and has been exactly as dull to write as it sounds.  Which gives me plenty of time to think of what the research was really about.  And to notice a jump in "Tall, White Male" sightings three years ago.  And another last year.
Last year, the year of the murder.  Not a fire, not a 'suicide', not a disappearance.  A girl's room covered in blood, her body completely dismembered, her internal organs apparently found in the woods days later.  The fact that it wasn't one of the biggest news events in the state makes me wonder if the Panopticon's right.  Shouldn't everyone have heard of it?  The few people I talked to about it seem not to remember how horrifying the event was.  In their memories, her boyfriend stabbed her, or she was shot by a burglar.  None of the reports are available to the public...that's unusual, after a year, right?

The dead girl's roommate is still enrolled, though all the information I have on her is a name.  Should I seek her out, find out what really happened to her roommate?  Or should I leave the poor girl out of this?

They're Whispering His Name

Final projects due, and a pile of data to go through.  It gives you a good idea how self-centered we are.  I know that the world doesn't work quite the way I thought it did.  I'm reading about death, loss, and terror...but since it's not my death or loss, I'm still concentrating on my normal life.  Still, I thought I'd update.  Here's an example of what I've been seeing:

The <Redacted> Police Department responded to <Address Redacted> near 7PM in response to multiple reports of a trespasser in the area.  No crime was committed, but the volume of calls prompted a response.  Callers reported feeling threatened by the man, but did not report any specific illegal actions when questioned.  The intruder is described as an unusually tall, white male dressed in a black suit.  

No crimes associated with those reports.  Not directly.  No one saw who caused the fire two weeks (and four more reports) later.  Sure, there was a strange, tall man lurking outside the sorority house a month before that girl died last year.  But if he did it, somebody would have noticed, wouldn't they?  I don't know if the police have noticed the pattern yet.  They don't grow 'em that bright in the South.  And with the Panopticon active here, I wouldn't be surprised to see the more obvious evidence disappearing.

Fucking hell.  I found a door to the Empty City.  And instead of closing this blog and never searching again, I continued on.  Now, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, I've found exactly the pattern I expected.  Lurking intruder, white male, no crimes.  Followed shortly by...events.  Arson and murder.  Missing persons.  Suicides. No witnesses, few suspects.  It's not proof, but it all points to the Slender Man.

Into This World We're Thrown

First Panopticon Guy:  "Hey, somebody took a picture of a doorway into the Empty City, and seems to be actively searching them out."
Second Panopticon Guy: "There is no Empty City.  This is the best of all possible worlds."
FPG:  "Well, yeah, but he was still snooping around the doorway that doesn't exist.  How should we deal with that?"
SPG:  "Tell him there's no Empty City?  We really don't have a lot of tools here, you know."
FPG:  "Should I mention that this is the best of all possible worlds, too?"
SPG:  "You know it, bro!"

This is the only way I can possibly explain what I found today when I went back to check the suspicious doors I looked at on Wednesday.  Door one and two, no change.  Door three, though?  Pictures speak louder than words.
This is what was waiting for me where the third photo on my last post was taken:

I get the message.  Fuck off,  we have this under control.  But it means these runners aren't crazy.  The door really did disappear.  I saw something that is supposed to be impossible.  I took a fucking photo of something that's impossible.  And somebody noticed.  I'm not sure right now which fact is scaring me more.

You Know the Day Destroys the Night

So, science time, kiddies!  Found out where to access the crime data I was looking for, but there's a whole hell of a lot of it to sift through.  For the moment, we get a few pictures of me trying to catch doors disappearing.  

First, a building with pairs of doors every thirty or forty feet contains this at the far end.  Second instance of room 301 in the building.  Still there when I checked it again, so probably just a strange architectural choice.  Or a long-term Door.  I suppose I should try opening it...opening without going through is safe, right?

Second door, out of place again, right next to a utility access door.  First picture I took, and I missed getting the access door in the shot, unfortunately.  117-A is right next to 117, so the numbering is closer to normal.  

Pretty much just keeping this here as a record in case I was right, and the lack of any other XXX-A rooms was a clue.  It's far from my usual location so I didn't have time to check it again.

This one was promising.  A long expanse of bare wall with the building's primary exits some distance away.  Aaand, my camera fucks up.  It's not like I was trying to take video of Slenderman or anything. Definitely worth going back to examine on Friday.  

That's all for today.  If you manage to spot any signs I missed, comment.  Otherwise, no direct research until Friday.  Hopefully I can get something up about the crime reports tomorrow.


Edit: On further examination, there's no way in hell I'm getting these crime reports looked through by tomorrow.  

Clinical, Intellectual, Cynical

I must have typed the right thing into Google, because on my second attempt, information about the Panopticon organization just seemed to spread out before me.  An insane, powerful group trying to ignore the Fears in the hope that they go away.  It's a nice theory, actually.  They inspired me to do some research.  The logic is, if the Fears exist as anything other than a pernicious meme-complex, there will be evidence.  I'm in a city, and I attend one of the largest universities in the country.  If even a few people are targets of the Fears, there should be evidence to find.  What to look for?

Obviously unexplained disappearances are a sign of all of them.

• Archangel: unusual religious activity, Timberwolves, the symbol, dead people seeming to return to life
• Black Dog:  unusual fang marks, guilt-based "suicide", reports to animal control
• The Choir: nonsensical arguments, explosive misunderstanding, mold
• Cold Boy: freezing to death in this climate would be very obvious
• Convocation: unusual behavior among birds, scarred minions
• EAT: strange obsessions, Camper, odd fascination with water...good climate for EAT here
• Empty City: doors where doors ought not be, might be difficult to spot in college buildings, but clear proof if it happens
• Plague Doctor: unusual illness
• The Rake: particularly bloody murder, strange reports to animal control
• The Slender Man: fires, Operator symbol, reports of stalkers without crime
• Smiling Man: bodies without hearts, flowers, not very subtle

Anyone know what the word is on the Archangel taking over existing religious groups?  Also, curious about the duration of Empty City doors.  Should I be comparing them to photos the next day, or five minutes later?  

I almost feel stupid looking for this.  It's not really the place of science to go hunting gods and demons.  Still, I don't see why it wouldn't work.  If there's no sign at all, I can get the idea out of my head.  

Everybody's Looking for Something

It occurs to me that "weird stuff that happened last time I looked into stuff about the Slenderman" sounds like a cliche.  Like there will be some kind of traumatic revelation later, and I've been being followed all along.  (Dun-dun-DUUUNNNNN!) 
No such luck.  Apartments equal strange noises.  A week of creepy stuff late at night when everyone else is asleep gets the imagination into overdrive.  In the end, I woke up the rest of the apartment after thinking my shadow in the hallway was the Slenderman for a second. 
I've got a weakness for strange and mysterious things.  I like to believe this kind of stuff is real.  A completely rational world is a little predictable, maybe even boring.  Sure, a lot of this stuff is probably fiction.  But, maybe it's not.  Maybe there's actually an Alice who will find Jeanette a little faster.  Maybe I've done something good. 
On the other side of that possibility, maybe my searching will wake up something dangerous.  Perhaps my inquiries on the subject of the Panopticon have not gone unnoticed.  Maybe that wasn't my shadow in the hall.
Yeah, sure, and maybe I've pissed off Zalgo with the silly thing I posted yesterday. 

The More You Dream the Less You Sleep

So...Fear Mythos and the Slenderman...alternate reality gaming and creepypasta?  Or eldritch abominations and incomprehensible doom?  It would be just my luck to be eviscerated by something I originally read about on TVTropes.  Well, I'm sure commenting on a few blogs doesn't count as "Meddling in Things Man Was Not Meant To Wot Of."
I'm sure the weird, terrifying stuff that scared me off the first time I was investigating Tall, Dark, and Faceless was just my overactive imagination.  (note to self, no matter how much fun it is, don't read creepypasta for four hours in a row at night) I'm actively researching the whole merry band of abominations, and nothing strange has happened yet.

Everybody In the Whole Cell Block

Been researching the Fear Mythos, but have yet to hear of what the Panopticon is. Hints are that it's some kind of secret organization. The word means "watcher of all", and I keep finding a prison design in my searches. Just a tiny bit ominous, that. Hope Proxiehunter is in hiding, rather than caught.

Days When the Rains Came

That's better.  The old design looked like a fresh Windows install or something.  Back to digging through creepy stuff on the internet. 

Bad Vibrations

T̵̋́͘o͊͋̃̃̅̒̽̿ ̈́͒̓͒͟͡p̀ͣ̋ͫ͛͡͝r͐̆̊͌̾̑͗͡ơ̛̽̽̍̍͌̆̈́̐ͨţ̵ͦ̇ͮͥ̌̅e̋ͨ͂̔͢͝c̑̓̔̎͑́͜t̷̊̓ͪ̈̽͢͜ ̵̡̃͐̆̾ͨ̋̿̿ͬt̵̽̒ͩ̾ͪ̌͊̈́͘҉h̡̆͌̃ͩ̈e̵̅͜ ̸ͧ͗̕҉ẘ͐̍ͥo̽̉́͘͝r̷͐̎̎͡͡l̃͋ͪdͯ͞ ͦ͊͊͐ͯͮ͗͠f̨͒͒̔̒͂̌́r͆ͤ̉̆͗ͤ̽̐͏́ǫ͐ͬ̽͝mͨͤ́ ̴ͭ͌̄̋̎ͭ͋̈́͐̕d̒ͣ̀̎ͭ̿͒ͥ̕͢͢ē̴̏̒ͤ̍͠v̊͊ͫ̐̉a̔ͦ̇͆̈́ͥ̆ͦs̅ͣ̓ͤ̏t͛͒̈́aͨ̾ͬ͜t̵̋̌̓ͦͪ̊͢͟í̵̉̐͏o͒̌͝n̛ͥ͗̿̂ͨͪ̐͡ň͒͜͠
T̸̵͚̱̉̂̅̿͋̈́̚o̖͙̲̬͎̬͙̻̽ͩ̏̈̑̿ͧ ̶͚͕̯̥̘͓̩͂̐̓̀ḭ̮͛́ņ̬̗̼̩̮͍͔͚̣̋̐ͫ̀̒͝v̸̢͔͔̞̩́̒̉o̷͕̬͍̮̯͍̭̹̍̌ͤ͗̀̚͜k̾̑̄̉҉̝̱̺̫͔̣̕e͍̭͕͙̦̥̫ͮ̑ͣ͢͢ ͎̭̲̤̼͉͔̩ͧ̊̔t̥͔̥ͣ̂̊͗́ͅh͙̝̞̖̭͒̆̓̄ͬ͗̌ͫ̿̀e̥̫ͮͪͫ͂̇͘ ͓͔̳ͣ̌ẖ̯ͨ̽̂̌̒̍͠͝i̜̲̤̮͇̱̋ͥ͋v̧͈̩͎̪̣̤͎͇̜ͯ̓̊̄ͨ͂ē̖̰̞̅̾͋̈͝-͚͖͙̫͉̜̣̦̘̈̒ͬ̓͂ͦ͋̌̅̀m̥̪̣̓̉ͮͨ͊͑iͭͨͩͫ͗͟҉͕̖̼͎n̛̹͓̯͙͍̠̓̏͆͡d̸͔̲͖͕̮̝̂̎ͬͬ͋̓ ̷̢̪̘̱̥̹̜̟̳̳͑̓ͮ̌̏ͩ͠r͚͖̺̓͋͡e̜̥͇̰͂̌͐̐̏̿̍̉́͢pͥ͐̽̎͛͒ͪͤ͏̸̮̫͕̼̫ͅr͇̹͇̹̯̹͗ͩ̉͑e̶͕̼̟̩͈̿ͥ̓̽ͬ̄̄̈̾s͚͚̖ͮͫeͨ̄́͏͖͎͉̣̺̣͎̩n̢̢̢̠͖͎ͬͤ̃ͦ̏͆ͥt̝̳̦̟͔̰̂̓̀̀ͅi͈̬͖̱̻̮̘ͨ́ͨͬ̉͐̚͢͡ͅn̵̟̭̻̋̒͋̈́ͦ̏̈́͢g̷̛͓̪̺̫ͭͫ̕ͅ ͆͏̛̹̪̫͉̱̦̣͞c͉̹̫̜̣̩̍ͫ̀̀͜h̡̫ͭ̍͞a̢̛͙̫̼̙̽̐ͮ͢o̓ͪͦ͛͐̑͟͏̥̖̣̼͉̰̖s͍̘̮͉̦͈̞̿ͬ̂ͤ̊́.͔̱̥͈͕̘͖̆̂̿ͯ
T̨ͤͪ͒̄ͧo͂̎ͭ͞ ̋̈̍͞d̶͌̈́͂̆͋ͯ͠è̚҉n̷͂̅ơ̏̒̓̎͞ű̃ͩ͂̀͛̒͟͟n̛ͯ̈́ͭ̐̇ç̊̎̾ē̄ͦ̿̅̒̽ͨ́ ͬ͑̔̓͛̍͝tͩͭ͞hͪ̅͜e͗͑̂̈́ͫ̉ͭ̇͠ ̶ͯ̓ͬ͗eͤvͯ͒͂̅͛͗̀҉i̡̛͊ͭlͧͣ͌͏̵̀sͬ̊̽͘ ̇̄ͦ͢o̷̔̎ͧ͘͢f̷ͤ͌̾͋͜͡ ̡̨ͭͪ̚t̓̊͟͝r̉̑͢u̶ͧ͑͐̂̽tͦͮͨ̋ͥ̉̐̕͠h̎ͦ͐̕ ̶͋̃åͦ̀̒̔̋̔n̡͆̌ͨ͝d̸ͯ͐̀ͯ̐͋ͦ͌ͨ҉ ̓̽̅͜l̵̛͐̈̒o̒̐̑͌͐̽͐͐͝v̷̡̛̇̏͆͛ͨ̐̚e̷̢ͫñ̵ͣ̈́̐ͦ
T̸̈̈́͂ͨ́́̚͞ȍ͑̈́̅ ̂ͫͫ̿e̡̐̄ͨ̈́̅ͬ͞x̢̓ͧ̚t̢̂̅ͭ͢e̎̊̌̄̊̓͠͞nͩͧ̆̈́̇͊̇ͧͩ͢͞d̐̉̓ͣ͝͏ ̵̶̉̑̊o̡ͫͨu̸̧͊ͫ̍̚̕ŕ̶̔̑̄͗̎ ̧ͦ͛̈́ͧͩ͑r̶̡̂͒͗͊͛́ͤͣéͣͨͧͬ͂ͬa͒̂̾͂ͣ͊c̛̈́͂̽̎ͭ́̚̚͢hͥ̂̎̍ͩ̋ͧͪ͠͏ ̋͞͏̨f̟̱̠̜̙̒ͩr̛͎̱̮̬̞͒͑̿ͬ̌̓͌o̱͒̈͊̽̀̓m̑ͨ͏͇̟̝̝̣͔̘̯ ̎̒ͯ̐ͧ̊̌͝t̅̀ͣ̆ḧ̴̷̊͑̄̊͢ė̉͂́̐̑̊͆҉͝͡ ͋̐̇͋̆ͤ̽̚͏s̈t̶̢͐ͣ͂̄̃̽a̛̋͛ͯͩ̄͆̅́͘r̎̈́͂͠s̷̛͋ͣ͌ͦͩ ̴̵͗̈́̂̀͑ͬ̇̕ä̎͢͢b͂̀͢͝ǫͬ̾ͩͬ̎ͮ̏̕͠v̊̓͋͊͌͌̄͜ȩ̅̌̿̒͒̈̂͗̀̕
H̙͇̪̠͈̝͍̄ͤ̿̑͊͡Ẻ̵̳̲͚̪ͫͬ͂̌ͤ͐ ̨̖͈͍͓̦̪͐̔̐̽̍Ć̸̡̨̟̻̙̈́̒̉O̧̗͇̲͓͓̜̯ͩ̾ͮ̂̈̎M̖͖͋E̢̞̫̮̟͖̫͍͒͝S͉̬͇̠͈̠͙̤̟̃̾̏͛̿̐͛!̴̵̥̯̙̮͈̺͌̓ͨ̐ͬͪ̏͛ͅ

Welcome to the Machine

Photos, ideas, thoughts, other bullshit. Mostly a record of anything I happen to find interesting. No first post on a blog is ever any good, so I'll bring it to a close before I make it any worse.