...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.