Forest of Slender Ch.1

    It had started out as just another day. I got out of bed, made coffee, kissed my wife, Cassandra, goodbye, and went off on my way to work. Nothing new, no complications. This little cycle had actually become quite enjoyable; it was simple. Sometimes Cassandra and I would just have a little "us" time when I get home, then we went to bed. But on that day, June 26, 2011, things wouldn't be so simple, nor would they ever be again.

    When I finally got home from work, it had been dark out, but not so dark that it had begun to cool down. It was a fairly easy day at the office, so I managed to get out a bit earlier than usual today. Not a whole lot to do in the office, but I had started shooting paper wads into a can like you would see in the movies. To be honest, there was never really much to do. The business was family owned, not to big or flashy, so they didn't really get much clientele. But when I got home that day, things would be very different.

    From the moment I stepped onto the driveway, there was something unmistakably wrong. There was a felling in the air, a certain aura I could not shake. It was wicked, this air, bothersome-- corrupt compared to the usual tranquility I come home to. I cannot really say I'm easy to scare, or that I am a superstitious man, but on that day, before I even walked beyond the front entrances, I was terrified more so than I had ever been in my life. I was almost ready to run away, but first I had to find Cassandra. I couldn't let her be here alone, I would never be able to live with myself again.

    My body, against my own will, had begun slowly turning away while I was contemplating. It took all the power I had to take a single step into the house, but I pulled through as I walked from the entrance of the small room, dubbed "The Big Closet" By Cass (mostly because that's where all the clothes go before we wash them), to the front door of the house. It felt as if there were something in the house, something felt off. All the clothes were still peacefully on the floor, piled on each-other waiting to get thrown into the washer, and I could still smell the detergent from the last load of laundry. Everything seemed normal, except for that single feeling, almost how one would feel if they were to walk into one of those "haunted burial grounds". It was a terrible feeling, my stomach beginning to turn as it surrounded me.

    Softly, I shook my head, trying to shoo the thought away as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my copy of the key. There were only two copies, one for me and one for Cass, and she normally kept the door locked. Today though, as I prepared to put my key in, I realized the door was not locked. As a matter of fact, to my surprise, the door was even slightly cracked. Now, don't get me wrong, we don't live in a rough area. Everyone is really nice, not a huge amount of crime goes on, but Cass was always so paranoid someone would break in, having grown up in a more ghetto, populated city. She wasn't used to a place as peaceful as Newtonsville, Ohio. Because of this, the door was always locked, and the windows always closed. It took me almost a whole day to convince her not to bar up the windows.

    "Cass, are you there?" I half called, half whispered, praying for some kind of response. She was OK, I thought to myself, she had to be. She was my wife, and I couldn't be without her. She helped me pull through so much of my life, in a way, she even got me the job I had today with sheer willpower. That woman was many things, and amazing was--

    Suddenly, a shattering came from inside, just on the other side of the door, and I jumped back slightly, losing my thoughts. Someone, or something, was in there. I had to see what it was. After a few moments of building up my courage, I opened the door, and the sudden feeling of blood-lust rushed past me, and the evil in my house, whatever it may have been, was much stronger than it was outside.I began to quake as I slowly, ever so slowly, snuck into my own house, entering the darkness that seemed to shroud everything  I once loved.

  Reaching over to the wall to the left of the door, I tried to turn on the light. I flicked the switch several times, but even the light had abandoned me, leaving me to bathe in the darkness. I had to wait a few minutes, allowing my eyes to adjust, but as I did, my sense of hearing seemed to increase in strength as well. Never had I realized how much the house creaked and groaned, how old it sounded. With every creak, a new, non-existent enemy appeared in my mind, forcing me to jump before I realized what had caused the noise. The way I seemed to behave was very much like a nervous cat, jumping at any and every noise that happened to make itself known to my sensitive ears. It was actually getting to the point where I was beginning to feel even more nauseous. The fear, the feeling of emptiness and corruption in my home, and the worry over Cassandra was very much like poison to my ever-sensitive stomach.

Finally my eyes had begun to adjust and I immediately noticed what had been shattered, but I did not recognize it from my home it was what appeared to be a hollow, dark gray stone, about the size of a small dinner plate, and the width of a dog dish. The stone was so thick, that even dropping it shouldn't have shattered it, but there it was, laying in pieces on my wooden floor, just in front of the empty fire place, and inside of it, a rolled up piece of paper. At first, I was hesitant to walk towards it, but it almost felt like the stone was calling me, pulling me slowly to it, and inevitably, like a child being led by hand, I went to it. I don't know what, but some force compelled me to pick up that paper, to open it up, to see what it had to say. On the paper, it read "To the forest" and just under that, in what appeared to be a manic scribbling from some nightmare or another, the phrase

"Always watches

no eyes"

    Almost all of it was underlined, and in the middle of the phrase was an "o" with an x in the middle of it. Staring at the odd symbol terrified me, like it was the source of evil in the whole house. Something about it seemed not of this world. Suddenly, My head began to throb, and my vision blurred. I put my hands up to my temples and rubbed to try to ease the pain. My whole body was screaming at me to get out of there; to get out of the house, out of this evil place. I went to turn around, but as I faced the door way, there was something... No, someone there. From what I could see as my vision began to darken, he was a giant. Standing at 6 1/2, maybe 7 feet tall, he cast a menacing shadow the lead into the house. For some reason, though it was clearly his shadow, it didn't seem attached, almost like it was another person following him than it was an actual shadow. Peering back up at him, I noticed he wore what appeared to be a black suit with a red tie, he was clearly bald. I tried to get a glance of his face, but for some reason, I couldn't see any features. In only a matter of seconds, I fell to my knees staring blankly at him, and in the last few seconds of consciousness, I would swear I saw what looked like tree moving branches on his back.

    The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, and then, in that moment, as I felt flooded with pain, surrounded by darkness, destruction, and death, the world I knew began to fade away, replaced only by the cold loneliness of black.