Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have been right tipsy tonight. No, not drunk, as my typing clearly indicates (by the way, fuck you if you commented on my last drunk post. I don't have to fucking impress you people), but not above the influence either. Drunk enough to receive my visitor.

My visitor is special. He is not on the good side or the evil side. He does not take sides. In fact, quite technically, he does not exist. He is a figment of my imagination. I am well aware that he is a figment, even under the influence, but it's in incredibly bad taste to call your guest imaginary, you know what I mean? Give him at least the dignity of being real.

He doesn't always appear to me when I'm drunk, but on this night he decided to make a visit anyway. This night, I was lost in a bottle of Jack I had been saving for the right occasion that still had not come but fuck it it's alcohol in all honesty does it really need a special occasion? Three or four shots rapid-fire and I was already feeling close to being a stumbler. I remember the days where I drank not to get drunk. I think I preferred that more.

He decided to come when I went to the bathroom to try and keep myself awake. I splashed some water and stared down, lost in thought, when his voice suddenly made me aware of his presence.

“How much longer are you going to be avoiding the problem?”

I groaned, knowing exactly who it was and what he was going to say.

“Not tonight, Eric,” I said. “I'm not in the mood.”

I look up at the mirror to see Eric Riley- or rather, my mind's perception of Eric Riley- standing behind me against the wall with his arms folded. He looked like he did when I always knew him, instead of looking like he did the last time I saw him; short hair, clean shaven, wearing work clothes. The only difference between the Eric I knew and the Eric I saw die was the hole in the stomach of his shirt and the spread of blood around it. His red badge.

“What night are you in the mood?” he asked me. “Every other night I show up, you never want to hear what I have to say.”

“Maybe that's the hint, maybe I don't want to hear you say it.”

“You already know it. I'm you, remember? I'm just reiterating a point.”

“And what point is that?”

He sighed. “What are you doing, man? Drinking yourself to death at night, trying to play the hero during the day? Looking for some other thing to chase after while trying to avoid the main problem for as long as you can? That's not you.”

“Not me?” I snorted. “How do you know what's me? I don't even know me anymore, and I AM me.”

“Maybe not, but my question stands.”

I slam my hand on the counter and turn to face him. “I don't need to hear this.”

“I think you do.”

“Yeah, and who the fuck are you to say it?”

“I'm the guy you left to die on the floor of a warehouse while you went to play the hero.”

“Oh don't start that shit again, Eric, I told you, I went to get help, if I didn't call for the ambulance you would have bled out-”

“I bled out anyway.”

“And that's not my fault.”

“You went in there to kill Conaghan, you went in there to take him on. You went there to try and even a score and avenge Lizzie-”

“I went in there to save you!”

“Then why didn't you?”

“I TRIED!”

It's at this point that the strain becomes too much for my throat and I suffer another coughing fit. I open the cabinets and grab my medicine, and take a quick gulp to alleviate the pain. I put it back and pause to let the medicine work its magic.

“Don't throw that bullshit at me like I wasn't fucking there,” I croaked at him.

“All I know is, I left that building in a body bag,” he said back. “Do you even know how you got out of there? Because I know a lot of other people sure don't.”

“You know how I got out; dragged out on my hands and knees with a fucking tentacle wrapped around my throat.” I coughed again, my throat taking a beating. “I wish I had gotten your position.”

“Oh, here we go with the death stuff again. Haven't heard that twenty times before.”

I got up and turned to him. “I don't have to put up with this.”

I walked out of the bathroom and closed the door, though I knew he'd be right back out in the kitchen waiting for me. Sure enough, I step through the door and there he is leaning against the counter, giving me that “what's wrong with you” look.

“Go away,” I said, sitting back down and pouring myself another shot.

“Why are you so insistent on dying?” he asked, ignoring my demands. “You've made it this far. Why not make it to old age, away from all this?”

I snorted. “You know as well as I do that there's no escaping this line of business. It's keep on fighting until either he dies or we do.”

“What about Redlight?”

I groaned. “Here we go. Didn't see this coming.”

“You know what I am. I'm the part of your mind that doubts that stronger-than-man persona you emulate off every orifice, doubts that part of you that everyone else seems to be fixated on. And right now, that part of you is wondering why you didn't take Redlight up on his offer-”

“Oh, what fucking offer?” I demanded, glaring at him. “Erase my memories? Give me a new identity? Because that's had a GREAT fucking track record, right? Robert got his mind wiped, and guess what? He's still fucking here. Nessa had to get her mind wiped twice. She's probably dead now. Redlight's offer is bullshit.”

“But you encouraged Nessa to take it.”

“I told her not to look for answers. She was free to do whatever she wanted.”

“But you're not?”

I shook my head, more to clear it than agree with him. “I have to stop it. Before more people die.”

“I think more people have died because of you being there than you trying to help,” came the angry retort. “Damien died following your theories. Zero died praising your name. Who's going to be next? Danny? Ava? Reach? How about Celeste-”

I threw the bottle of Jack, missing his head by a fraction of an inch as it smashed against the wall. Glass littered the counter as the whiskey spilled across the floor, leaving a murky brown puddle. We were overcome with silence for a moment, staring at each other. Finally I turned away, rubbing my eyes.

“I can't...I can't give this up. I have to keep trying. And I don't really understand why sometimes, why I do it. But good or bad, I gotta see this to the end.”

“Why?”

“...Because no one else has made it this far.”

Silence again.

“You won't kill Slender Man, Zeke. That's not your place to do it.”

“I know.” I sighed. “But I have to try anyway. At least give whoever is supposed to stop him a fair chance.”

Silence again.

“...would forgetting all this really be that bad?”

I slam my eyes shut. Memories of my childhood, of high school, of the academy, of my job before my last case...they were my memories. My life. To forget would mean they never happened. Would mean I never happened. They were more or less all I had, at this point. But mostly...

“If I forget me, I forget everything that happened. I forget you, I forget Conaghan, I forget those kids that I'm no closer to finding now than I was a year ago...” I gulped down my last drink. “I forget Lizzie...and I can't do that. I can't just let that go.”

“Maybe...that's not such a bad thing...”

I rub my forehead. “I just...I can't, alright? How can you really ask me to forget everyone? Huh?”

When I got no answer, I looked up to acknowledge him, which I had tried not to do the entire time he had been there, but he was gone. Sunken back into the confines of my mind.

Definitely one of my more enjoyable visits.

…

Indiana.

That's where Damien was located.

I might not post for a while. God knows I'm not going to get another free plane ticket. Driving is gonna take a while, and then finding the exact town and getting my bearings there.

Try not to let everything go to Hell while I'm gone, okay?

Damien O'Connor

I never did explain my thoughts on Damien, did I? With everything that's been going on, and the fact that I couldn't post for the longest time, it made me hold back my thoughts on the matter. Then everything that's happened in the last few months made me put it aside while other things took precedence.

The sad part is that I never read Dreams in Darkness or found out about everything Damien had been through until after he had died; a guilty feeling that worsened when I realized that he had been following my little adventure. I wonder if it would have made a difference had I realized him sooner...I guess it really doesn't matter now...

Some people think what happened to Damien last summer was real. Still others think that everything he said happened was just a story he made up. Well, I'll tell you my thoughts, but I'll tell you now, my thoughts on the subject are mixed.

The things Damien found in that building, the things his mother told him, the video tape...how do you just make a story like that up, I wonder? All of it seemed too...real, I guess. The timeline and how things matched up with each other just seemed to fit just right. There were few points in his blog where I doubted what was happening, and it was pretty much because my gut felt everything he had gone through. Every description hit me where it hurt.

With Damien, it really just comes down to gut instinct. They say that a true story truly told makes the stomach believe. It definitely did that to mine.

The reason I say I'm mixed, though, is because Rick's confession puts things into perspective for me. There are certainly parts of the narrative we can't account for. Damien's exact medical history was never revealed, so he may very well have been a full-on psycho. The details about Amelia, since we only heard one side of the story, makes sense to me. The story of his family, his uncle, could very well have been fabricated and with the mother being insane and thus not an entirely reliable source, who's to say it wasn't?

Damien throws his word, but Rick throws facts. It's hard to say for certain which one is the winner.

Hypothetically speaking, it COULD have all been fake, I don't know. But something just doesn't add up for me.

Still, it calls for more investigation. Six bodies are pulled out of the incident; Damien, his roommate Ted, the Ellison couple, Amelia, and Wilcox. Ted was found strung up by his intestine, all his other organs in bags a couple feet away. The Ellisons were torn apart in their motel room. Amelia, killed in a car accident. Wilcox, slit throat and knife to the heart.

Damien, though...how did he die, exactly? Hanging? Slit wrists? Burned himself in with his house? All we're told is that he's dead, killing himself as he's about to be apprehended...I believe that he did in fact die, of that I'm...well, not positive, but near certain. There are too many factors for Rick to take into consideration if he was going to try and pass his brother off as dead. Not if he actually wanted hiding a kid with a split personality to work.

Now, the things Damien found...the drawings, that weird bone-thing...where are they now, I wonder? Confiscated? Buried? Were they ever really real to begin with? Rick seems to hint that they are, but...what purpose? I don't know. Maybe it's just a weird-shaped bone. I'm not putting too much importance on it; I've said before, simple items won't kill Slender Man. Too easy.

Too many questions, far too many. And what few answers there are died when Damien did. If I have any chances of understanding what happened, I'm going to need to go to where Damien lived and explore around. Maybe I'll find what he was talking about. Maybe I'll find what Rick said was there. Either way, I need to see for myself.

Rick, if you're still out there, if you still pay attention to any of this...message me. Comment on here. Let me know. There's deeper shit than what you told us, I know there is. You owe it to your brother to figure out what.

In the mean time, I'm gonna try and map Damien's exact hometown, since it was never specifically stated where he lived. If anyone has any idea, let me know.

Wish me luck.

The Lead

Mary Gallagher.

There's not much in this file about the woman I just named, but there's basic information and that's the best place to start. Judging by the picture from Armeen's album, she's around the same age Lizzie was, so early thirties. Hair color is still the same, assuming the picture in this file is a recent picture, which I'm not entirely sure it is. From the information given, she had been a Girl Scout at one point, helped out her elderly neighbors with their groceries, got good grades in school, wanted to join the Peace Corps...all around good girl.

This is six-or-seven-year-old information.

I guess this is as recent as I'm going to get.

None of this tells me whether or not she's still alive. Last known record of her was that she was in Alabama (it's either Alabama or New Jersey...why those two states, why does it always come down to those two states, what is it about those two states that attract this mystery like ants to dropped food?) and that's it. Most of what's in this file pertains to her research, which to me is just as important and interesting as the girl herself.

I told you all before, I looked through the Methodist files and could not find her. How could that be, when according to readers the Methodists had records of their users?

Simple: she's not Methodist.

Strictly speaking, she's not a part of any organized religion at all.

It looks like her family were members of some kind of cult, one that worshiped something that no organized Bible has ever spoken of, names that I only barely understand. From this it looks like she was...studying it? Studying the religion? I don't know. But among the written report are pictures I'm all too familiar with, drawings I know all too well.

It has no name, as far as I can tell. I looked everywhere, but the only thing I could really find were some Latin words. I know nothing about Latin, but the words “excilis everto” struck a chord with me. I feel like I've seen it before, but for the life of me I can't remember where...

It's never been seen in the public eye. It's always been underground. Never caused a problem, never had attention towards it. And from the looks of it, it's never wanted any of that. This strikes me as a little odd. Churches usually rely on donations and public support in order to stay alive. From the looks of it, however, it's pretty much extinct anyways, although judging by the pictures of mutilated corpses mixed in with the pages I don't think that's due to lack of funds.

Where Mary fits into all of this, what her position in the cult is, isn't entirely clear, but at the end of the notes, she seemed to be looking for a way out. The final entry says, “This is the last thing I'll ever write for them. One way or another, I'm getting out. May God have mercy on me.” I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it didn't end very well. I guess I'll never know though.

Regardless of whether or not she got out, this cult, this organization, this is a lead. If I can find out where they're originating from, I might be able to work from there. If there's anyone still alive, I might be able to “convince” them to spill. It's the only shot I've got right now.

Maybe...

It's three in the morning now, but I had to finish this off before I posted it. I just woke up from one of the more vivid nightmares I've had in a while. I'm in the woods, running towards a figure that I can't make out who or what it is. The faster I run, the faster the figure runs away from me. I call out to it, but it just leads towards a red building and then it disappears. I start to venture inside, but I'm instantly hit by black, and before I know it I'm falling and yelling and at the end there's my old slender friend with his tentacles reaching up for me and when I woke up I understood immediately what it meant.

The Latin words. "Excilis everto". I mentioned above that I recognized it from somewhere. I finally remembered where- or who- I heard it from.

Damien.

Visitor

Middle of the night, I wake up to hear something moving around in my living room. The fact that they were able to wake up such a heavy sleeper meant that they wanted me to find them, but what happened afterwards...well, let me just start from the beginning.

I took my medicine and went to bed, the hopelessness of this situation putting me to sleep. About forty minutes later I found myself waking up to a loud tapping outside my door, in my kitchen. At first I thought I was just imagining it, but then it kept tapping and I heard a chair creak backwards and that was all it took to convince me.

Heart pounding in my chest, I carefully snuck out of bed and reached for my gun. Making sure it was loaded, I crept towards the door, weapon trained. One hand steadied it towards the door while the other hand reached for the door and pulled it slowly open.

I usually keep one light on in the kitchen, just to ward off anybody that might want to look in, but tonight the house was pitch black saved for a lit candle on my table. When I came in, there was someone sitting at the table, his identity hidden underneath a dark cloak. The tapping was his boot beating against the wooden floor in a fast rhythm. He was rocking back and forth, the chair creaking whenever he leaned back.

I cocked the gun and he stopped moving. He raised a hand- one with bandages covering the fingers- in indication that he was not here to fight. I didn't lower.

“Turn around nice and slow,” I whispered, my throat already starting to burn.

“No need for violence, Mr. Strahm,”the voice replied.

“Turn around now,” I raised my voice a little higher, trying not to strain myself

He finally did, and even though I could barely see his face under the hood he wore, I suddenly had an idea of who he was.

“Oh...it's you, is it?” I hardly lowered my gun. “What do you want?”

He didn't answer. Instead, he lowered his hand and used it to push a bundle to the side so that I could see it. I inched closer, not taking my gun off him, to see what it was.

It looked like a file.

“What's this?”

“One of two roads I offer for you,” he said, standing up and walking around to the other side of the table. “This road leads to answers. The answers you seek. By opening this folder's contents, you go down this road, and once you go down it, you can't so easily turn back.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said, having heard this plenty of times. Not all of them from the movies. “So what's the other one?”

“The other path is to walk away. Forget this girl. Forget him. Forget all of this and leave it. Try to live out the rest of your life never having to worry about any of this mess ever again.”

I managed a rough laugh which turned into a cough, which turned into me spitting out phlegm that was stuck in my throat into the sink.

“Live out my life without this...” I shook my head. “Last I checked I was wanted for murder. They're not just going to turn a blind eye to that. How do you suggest I do that?”

He shrugged. “My offer still stands.”

“Ah, yeah,” I glared right at him. “Because that worked real well for Nessa, right?”

He didn't have an answer for that, which I took to be all the answer I needed. I sat back down and placed my hand on the file. Whatever was in it, there was a lot of it. I had my reading time cut out for me.

“Take my offer, Mr. Strahm.” He wasn't done. “Take it into consideration, at least.”

“Fuck off.”

He shook his head. “Why must you be so persistent? What do you get from this? What is your goal in trying to find the answers.”

I just smirked at him.

“If you're not out that door and far away from me in under a minute, you're never going to find out.”

He just looked at me, but I didn't even bother looking back at him. Finally, I heard the shuffling of the feet towards the door, and I reached for the file to open it when I heard his voice again.

“Option will stay open-”

“Thirty seconds.”

Five seconds after that, the door opened, the footsteps went out, and the door closed again, leaving me to my lonesome once again.

I'm going through the file now, and while I don't have anything definite for you...I think this is exactly what I needed to find.

Robert, glad to see you're back.

Celeste, be safe.

I'll update again when I've processed everything.