Chapter Text
It all started with that stupid assignment.
In my mythology class, we had to choose a mythical creature to do an informative essay on to read to the class. Everyone already picked out the popular ones. Griffins, Sirens, Mimics, and the such. I couldn’t think of any, so I went to the school library and searched for mythical bestiary books.
In the mythical section, though, there was one book that caught my attention. Its cover was made of worn-down, black leatherette. The front of the book was blank. When I opened it, a name was written on the inside, Eric Knudsen.
Reading through the book, it talked about The Slenderman, a tall, slender, faceless being, wearing a suit and tie. Eric Knudsen recorded down where he lived, which was wooded areas in North America, and what he did. The Slenderman would lure children away from their families and turn them into his proxies; his workers to do his bidding.
It was a fun book to read. I had never read a book that was written as if it were a documentary. Eric Knudsen even wrote about how going after The Slenderman was affecting him. He had encountered him and was mysteriously left alive. He said it was as if The Slenderman wanted him to write about him. Eric wrote about the headaches that formed when around The Slenderman, and how his hearing was blocked whenever he looked at him.
There were no pictures of The Slenderman in the book. Eric said that whenever he tried to take a picture, all that would show was static. So instead, there were drawings of him. Crude, child-like drawings, but they served its purpose of showing me what he looked like.
After reading the entire book, I couldn’t get The Slenderman out of my head. I just knew I had to make my mythology assignment about him.
And I did. My teacher tried to give me a C for effort, but I argued that The Slenderman was my family’s mythical creature. I lied, saying how my great-grandma swore she saw him in the woods, and she passed down the story to my grandfather, and he to my mother. I was then given an A. I’m a very good liar.
I went to bed that night, but when I went to close my window, I saw him.
The Slenderman.
He stared at me from my backyard. And I stared back. I thought the book was fake- I thought mythical creatures were fake.
But seeing him there proved me wrong.
I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. A headache started to form the more I stared at him, and the sound of the crickets outside became muffled.
I blinked…
And he was gone. I started to breathe again, which I hadn’t noticed I stopped doing. I could hear the crickets, and my headache was slowly fading. I closed my window, locked it, and then locked my bedroom doors.
Thankfully, I dreamt of nothing that night.