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.