Object Of Fatality

• Tori Wilson, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2012

I stumble alone through the dense wood; the distant cries of my friends disperse around me, the calls too faint for me to follow to its source. I know the legend and I’d heard the stories, but I am not a believer. Yet I find myself straining my eyes and scanning the terrain for a presence which could not possibly be there. The snap of a twig and the swift rustling of a shrub had me violently swinging my torch hoping to shine my light upon nothing more than a harmless animal. My torch light found nothing, no possible explanation. My mind raced, creating excuses to rationalize my fear. Could it not have been my friends tricking me? I could still hear their worried cries echo through the trees.
A single thought penetrated my mind: he is coming. A thought not my own, a thought placed inside my mind to grow, to corrupt my mind into further thinking I was in danger.
Were these shadows I saw racing from tree to tree illuminated only by the soft moonlight or were my eyes deceiving me again? Was it a full grown man’s figure I saw at the far end of the clearing, or an innocent tree bent in such a way?
I could no longer trust my eyes for they were as cunning as the presence closing in on me.
I strained my ears while I remained immobile with the breathless air. I became aware of many sounds, but none originating from my surroundings or the presence closing in on me. I could hear my heart drumming loudly in my ear, my breath was short and I was slightly wheezing, as if I had been sprinting. I could feel the adrenaline pulsing through my body. What could I be hearing now? Footsteps defiantly echoed, sounding oddly out of place. These footsteps sounded as if they were walking on hard wood flooring.
Impossible; it is impossible to make such a sound in an area canopied by dead leaves and twigs.
He is close, the planted idea boomed in my mind like cannon fire.
Suddenly, a wave of acceptance rolled over me; I was aware of my fate and felt oddly calm about it. Again I assumed this idea had been manipulated into my emotions. Was this the monsters last sign of his advance toward his victim? I refused to believe my emotions; I refused to accept death by this monster. I wouldn’t allow myself to be lulled into a false sense of security by this beast.
The footsteps approached from behind me.
He was closer than my shadow and twice as silent.
As my torch light flickered and faded to black I breathed heavily and rejected the opportunity to meet my aggressors gaze, my senses began to fail, my eyes blurred with what I can only describe as static, and my ears drowned out into a deafening silence.

I was now the newest victim of the slender man.