the monster tree

When I returned home after all the chaos and pain I opened my laptop.

My desktop had icons pasted over the whole thing. Every one opened the same image.

Clearly, Piggy sucks at Photoshop.

I found Shiloh at the mall. Even though he spotted my hidden camera, he let me record the conversation. Which came back as pure static every time, uh... "He" was alluded to.

Fuck that. its name doesn't get capitalization. Or a gendered pronoun.

Oh screw that too. Clearly giving it any sort of special pronoun puts it on some pedistal and frankly I don't think I'm at the position to criticize said pedistal.

Not that the static matters. It was lost in the water at the place, with my phone and wallet and everything else. My parents, thankfully, are alive, and doing fine. Just shaken up because I was gone for a month. I've steered clear of the internet since then. I don't blame Shiloh or his "guardian" (oh right. it really turned out to be some schizo split personality but who really cares in this whole game anyways?) for what happened, but I sure as hell don't want to mess with him or anything else again. He seemed to need help, but I think his needing help was all part of the plan.

Let me tell you first off that all that "hollowed" shit you read in the Slender Man Mythos online is not real.

I don't know what happened while I was gone and I don't care to. But what I do know is that "it" doesn't care much about any human being at all. The minute I laid my eyes on its true body, not some faceless man in a suit but instead some impossible melding of shining flesh and wriggling bone I lost my mind. Not in the Lovecraftian sort of way, going mad from a revelation or sight.

There's something wrong with it. It's programmed to screw with your head.

For a month I stayed in one place, or god knows what I did, dreaming. I dreamed of my past, mostly. And I remembered. I remembered in startling detail.

Piggy was not an imaginary friend. Piggy was the nickname of my baby brother. Parker.

Then it happened on November 22, 1998. Just like that damn picture created by our photoshop wizard hinted at so long ago. The known sex offender Arthur Lich kidnapped him.

He was a freak. I don't remember anything at all about him - other than the fact that they called him "The Big Bad Wolf" because of that mask he would wear as he lured kids in. Lured them in with balloons and a smile... lured me in despite my parents' warnings over the years to stay away from such a man.

But I gave in, and he took Parker. Piggy.

But in my dreams and in my memories there was always something wrong with him... he wasn't quite... human at all.

So is he... you know. Tall Dark and Faceless? Oh fuck it. If I'm going to get submerged in this alternate reality game shit I might as well call him what he is. The god damned Slender Man. Or is he something else entirely? Despite the month-long plague of memories and emotions, I still am in the dark.

And now that picture.

I guess I'm supposed to go to the place. That cancerous tree me and David used to visit when we were kids. The Monster Tree.

But not now. If I can avoid this I will. I'm not going down the same path as Shiloh.

Piggy. The Big Bad Wolf. The Slender Man. Grant. What do they all have in common?

I'm sleeping with a twenty dollar bill under my pillowcase with the lights on. Maybe being a smartass will ward off evil.

In Which I Examine the Fear Incarnate

So here I sit in my advanced trigonometry class, my deep-voiced professor rambling about mapping trigonometric values or some such nonsense, half the class speaking loudly and unabashedly, the rest playing tetris on their laptop computers, a few actually note-taking. And here I sit, writing a blog that nobody reads.

I am here today, blogging instead of drawing graphs, because I want to discuss something without video logging it (since it turns out formatting and uploading is kind of a bitch to do).

Credit Joshua Hoffine

What is fear?

It's been described as one of humanity's most natural emotions. It is divided into different types - personal fears like dying alone, primal fears like heights and water, fears from experience, et cetera. I'm sure there are official names, but I will refer to them in my own way. In addition to this, there are different stages of fear. There's terror, a kind of paranoia or suspense, knowing that there's a monster under your bed. There's horror, seeing the monster with its fangs dripping flesh and blood and being too paralyzed with fear to scream. There's a sort of fight-or-flight fear, the adrenaline-kicking sort of rush.

Fear is there to protect you, basically. When you see something harmful or something that psychologically reminds you of something harmful, you fear it. When you expect something you fear, you become terrified.

What greater power would there be than to become fear, to paralyze anybody you looked upon?

This is possible.

I do not know how.

All I know is that I've looked fear in the eye, and I survived. Am I insane? I don't think so. But they do say the truly insane believe themselves normal. I don't really know what should believed anymore. I'll make more observations later. The bell is going to ring.

oH GOD thE PaIN (psyche!)

Ahaha.

So it's been a while since I last blogged. I don't know, maybe. I'm too lazy to open a new tab and check when that last update was (please slap me for typing that). But I was just surprised to discover that Blogspot is no longer blocked at my school. I'd like to take this study hall procrastination session to tell you everything is going smoothly. The spring has begun, and I've had no problems with my personal bogeymen.

I also figure it's about time to explain what all of this paranoid (?) blogging means.

December. I was going through a bit of a tough phase. Bogged down with work and school and all, and to top it off I've got my paranoid niece to worry about. I lost contact with David, and took refuge in horror movies and the internet. I lived on Mountain Dew and black coffee. And that's when he appeared.

He being... well, I don't think it's necessary to say, knowing what my obsession was in October and November. I'm talking about the Slender Man, dummy.

But let's just say I was wrong. Too much creepypasta-writing and too little common sense led me to this delusion, the delusion that I was being followed by some faceless Eldrich horror. The paranoia didn't last long. Eventually, I dismissed it all as the stories getting to me. So naturally I stopped believing.

And what do you know. Slendy disappeared faster than I could whip out a twenty dollar bill.

And in his place came the terrible nightmares. I might post some of my dream logs later, for those with an inclination to psychoanalysis. But in short, let me just describe them as surreal and terrifying. I started jumping at shadows. Everything that scared me at night scared me in the day. My worst nightmares were real. At first they were Slender Man, then they became, I dunno. Ghosts. Voices from Hell. Candle Cove and Pokemon Black for a while. And I knew this was all mocking me.

So I decided to play mind games with whoever was watching me. My parents, being the awesome people they are, actually allowed me to go on a several week-long trip, taking a bit of school off to gather my thoughts and see the world. And in the process, I aimed my thoughts at turning my worst fears into real things. Tangible things. I read books on serial killers. I watched some gory, squick-filled movies. None of the abominations you can't touch. Only real things. If something can kill you, you can kill it. If it's human, it has the capability to die too.

I'd like to skip the next part for now, if you don't mind. Too much work to make up. But let me tell you - my demons can now fully be considered thwarted (for now?) and the triumphant victory goes to Jacob Owen, nothing else.

Once I manage to wade my way out of the mess I made by leaving school and work, I'm starting my online video series. "The Project." I hope to put my experiences to scientific work.

Until next time, goodbye.

So You Want to Hear the Story

Miss Daggertooth visits children in their sleep. Her mouth is her whole head, and she devours children who have misbehaved. Her head, it's just round, like some fucked up Jack the Pumpkin King from hell, with two black beads for eyes and no nose. Her body is just black reaper's cloth, it's a torn dress, with no legs, she just floats in place, and her arms are long like the branches of a tree.

My dad told me the story once. I asked him about it today but I guess he didn't remember. He said, many years ago, that it was the Brothers Grimm. No way in hell. He made up the story, and it was more terrifying than anything I'd ever heard. Nightmares followed. My imagination was overactive, and because of that I sought out more. I liked terrifying myself, making up stories about Miss Daggertooth. I wrote in notebooks about her. Drew her everywhere. The more I dreamed her up, the more terrifying my nightmares became.

This is what we, as humans, fear the most. We fear not the things that can touch us, but the things that can't. We're afraid of the things we think up ourselves. You're not afraid of the bogeyman, or of the ghost, or the killer, or of Slender Man or Miss Daggertooth. You're afraid of all the things you imagine them doing when your eyes are closed at night.

***

I'm starting my... project soon. I don't know what the medium is yet. I liked to fancy myself a photographer but I don't even have a good camera. Drawings and paintings are too fake. Film would be nice but I've got the whole camera issue.
Any suggestions? I noticed one follower (Liam, I think you were called? And a Slender fan, too), so I know I can't be just talking to nobody here.
It's hard to talk about the project, though, without giving stuff away. Let's just say I'm really going to put myself into it... and you'll all be shaking in fear.

Long-Forgotten Fairy Tales

I had to get some sleep early today, because I'm planning on going to a film release at midnight with some people. So, knowing how much trouble I have sleeping even when I am tired, tried to force it around 8:00. I think it was around 9:00 when I managed to actually fall into a light sleep, in a sweaty-and-feeling-gross way more than anything else. I woke up at the last track of the CD I'd been listening to in order to lull myself to sleep, knowing nothing about what I'd just dreamt other than that it wasn't a dream, per se. It was more just... thoughts. A weird, crazy rush of nonsensical thoughts. And being pulled out of that world and into a half-wakened state scared the hell out of me. Since I was still half-asleep though, I managed to pull myself back under again. Haha, bad idea. Being a zombie tomorrow would be better than deciding to get that last bit of dream.
I don't remember much. I was in bed, I think. Trying to cover my head with the sheets, but they were always being pulled away. There was some unholy light piercing through the curtains.
And then there was Miss Daggertooth just as I had seen her as a child, in all my nightmares when I was six years old. Her tiny, beady eyes and her rows and rows of teeth in that mouth that just hinges open on the neck...
Oh jeez, I'm scaring myself again.
Maybe I'll explain later. Maybe not.
But there's little hope of me getting any sleep, good or bad, for the next few days.

To die; To sleep; To sleep perchance to dream

It's too late now to think of anything worthwhile.
...Nobody understands my art. It's been slammed, and my honor crushed. I've deactivated my old account on that site.
I need something real. Something that strikes emotion into people's hearts.

Fear; nightmares.

As the great writer H.P. Lovecraft said, in other words of course, fear is the oldest and most profound of all human emotions. If I can't create paranoia in terror...
I will strike fear into their hearts.
Burn.