The Other Side of the Coin

Did you guys notice I have a title now?  Apparently I'm a batman villain now, and unsurprisingly I'm kind of o.k. with this.

Well I was, but after this week, I'm pretty much sick of all of this.  You think I would have been able to hold this off a bit longer, but no, I'm clearly not the only one playing this game, and apparently I'm not even the only one cheating.  You know what, that's not even fair, I've probably had a better week than any of you, possibly excluding some of the proxies in the audience, but I really don't care all that much.  Because this is the week I betrayed a friend.  It's not like I didn't see this coming, like I haven't spent this time mentally preparing myself for when I had to make this choice.  But then it's not like I ever really had a choice, is it?  Do or die isn't much of a choice, really.

So yes, my  good friend  the Slender Man payed a visit to Elizabeth this week.  How do I know this, you might ask yourself, well I know it because he payed me a visit shortly prior, good friend that he is, to let me know he wanted a "favor."  Obviously I'm paraphrasing.  He wanted me to introduce him to Elizabeth, or rather, he wanted me to help set the mood.  I didn't exactly have the necessary cards to say no.  Both of us know there is a line, a constantly shifting, moving, unseen line that he can't cross and another equally unstable line that I won't cross.  The day either line is broken one of us gets hurt... and I get killed.  I don't know exactly where either line is, but that wasn't it, so I agreed to his suggestion.

So Saturday I broke into Elizabeth's apartment.

That's not true, I ransacked her apartment, I flipped furniture, I destroyed her television, I stole her computer, I emptied her trash all over the floor, I made sure the place was a complete wreck.  My final touch was to add an operator's symbol to her mirror in blood.  This is a point where having a school with a good biology department is a mixed blessing.  I made sure that no one saw me entering or exiting from the apartment, and I made sure to stop by the security room and destroy all of the recordings from that day.  Fortunately not many people stay on campus during the weekend here, so I didn't have to worry too much.

After that I returned to my dorm and waited.  I just sat on my floor and waited for what was going to come, I might have passed out at some point, but I honestly don't remember either falling asleep or waking up at any point in all that time, so maybe I didn't. maybe I've been awake for almost 48 hours now.  I'm going to sleep after I finish typing this.  It was around two in the afternoon when what I was waiting for happened: Elizabeth called.

She had just gotten back from visiting her parents for the weekend, I can only imagine what went through her head when she opened the door to her apartment and found the chaos waiting for her.  The chaos I had left for her to find.  She called me before she called the police.  Is that ironic or just sad?  I ran there to make sure I arrived before the campus police did, the ones I told Elizabeth to call.  I found her in the apartment's parking lot, waiting for me.  She was holding herself and shivering, even though it was probably the warmest day in a month.  I don't even remember what I said, but somehow I calmed her down as quickly as I could, and I got her to tell me what was wrong.  When she told me someone had broken into her apartment I rushed up there as quickly as I could, telling here to stay behind.  She didn't, just like I knew she wouldn't, but when we got to the door and I went inside she waited outside, just like I knew she would.  I should have made a mistake, I should have thought up a worse plan, but I didn't, I knew exactly what I was supposed to do and I did it.

I made a big show of flipping over the furniture, burying through piles trash, and looking in ransacked cabinets. I made sure to put my hands as many places as I could, to leave as much of a mark behind as possible.  To contaminate the crime scene.  I found a wrench where I had left it in my original mess, under the last piece of furniture in the room.  I picked it up and held over my shoulder like a bat and moved towards the bedroom door.  Elizabeth called after me nervously, asking what I was doing.  It wasn't difficult to make my voice nervous and uncertain, it may of been for different reasons than she believed, but I was barely holding myself together at that point.  Have you ever had to destroy the very sense of security and peace of someone you cared about, then had walk through the shattered bits of their happiness while trying to convince them you're just helping?  It isn't easy.  But I told her I was going to look in her room to make sure whoever did this was gone, and I said it with a straight face.

I didn't have to do as much to her room, after I opened the Elizabeth couldn't see me any longer.  Still, I made a point to move the bed and open the closet, just to make it clear that I had examined the room.  However I tried to avoid wasting any more time than I could afford, in my mind I could see the campus police pulling into the parking lot, and preparing to take control of the situation, the real police right behind them.  I exited the bedroom and moved to the bathroom, making sure to gasp loudly enough for Elizabeth to hear.  I heard my name called from the doorway, then the voice of a man asking what was going on.  I quickly touched the blood on the mirror, completing my claim that any evidence of my involvement happened after the crime.  The blood was mostly dry, but I still managed to get enough on my hand for what I needed before the campus police officer came and piratically dragged me out of the apartment.

After we got outside he turned to say something, and stepped back after noticing my eyes; for a brief moment I was acutely aware of how easily I could have pushed him over the second floor balcony.  But he recovered and proceeded to ask what I was doing in the apartment and give me a lecture about disturbing a crime scene and going into a potentially dangerous situation that lasted until the real police showed up and took over.  Elizabeth and I both had to answer several questions before we were allowed to leave, and by that time Elizabeth was even more uneasy and scared.  This was the plan, she had to be as vulnerable as possible, she needed to be scared and confused and hopeless, and I needed to be there to save her.

So I suggested we go somewhere to calm her down.

I suggested the campus nature trail.

I walked one of my only friends into a trap I had meticiously laid out for her, and I did it knowing full well I would have to watch her lose every shred of hope drained from her eyes, and I did knowing that I would be lieing to her and pretending I was really helping her all the while, and I did it anyways.

Because the nature trail was where it happened.

That's where the Slender Man made his move.

I saw him standing off behind the trees, and I saw her see him.  I watched the color drain from my friends face, I felt her grab my shirt.  I heard the fear in her voice as she asked if I saw what she saw, as she asked if the monster she only knew from a fictional series on youtube was really standing there, watching her.  That's when I did the most despicable thing I did that entire day: I smiled.  I gave Elizabeth the calmest, most reassuring smile I could manage, and I told her nothing was there.  I pretended convinced her that what she was seeing was just stress or shock or anything but what she thought it was.  I told her she was the only one who could she the darkness about to consume her mind.

I told her she was alone.

I took her back to my dorm, I convinced the RA to let her stay the night, and I told her to get some sleep.  I got online and looked at a few things, but it wasn't even an hour before she woke up from her inevitable nightmares.  We spent the night talking, neither of us slept, even though my roommate passed out long before dawn.  We both saw the man in the window, I'm sure, but neither mentioned him once.  We talked of life, fate, the future, hope, dreams, we spoke of these things as though we had them, we acted like they were obtainable for us, rather than just illusions that would ultimately serve to crush us even further.  I even spoke like I meant them, even though I didn't.

When the sun took to the skies I left Elizabeth in my room to get some sleep, to descend further into the madness of her nightmares, and I went to class.  When I got back she was gone, so I sat down and typed this up.  I just betrayed a friend in the worst way possible, and I wrote it up to put on a freaking blog read by a mix of stupid victims that don't even realize what's going on, and egotistical psychopaths who live to hunt down the victims.


I can't publish this.  I'm erasing this and going to sleep.

This needs to be seen.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

If you don't know this poem, shame on you, google Robert Frost and come back when you're more educated.  I'm sorry, that's probably a bit harsh, this post isn't about Frost anyway, I just happen to be a fan of the man's work.  But no, this post is brought to you on request of a friend, he wants to spread a question around.  What happens after you take the Path of Black Leaves?  It is a good question, isn't it, going down that road is a changing experience for those with the fortune or misfortune to walk along its trail.

I have only ever entered the path once, and sometimes I still feel it, seeping into my head.  I have never had hallucinations, and I'm not one to remember my own dreams, but there is something in that realm that changes you.  When I first went in I knew far less than I do now, but I could feel the power of the place right away.  The ground, the sky, it all reeked of a darkness and His power permeated the trees, and it all hit me at once.  I... lost control, it's a place I have never taken it a second time for a reason, any power I hold over Cage is lost there, I all but blacked out as the cruelest part of my mind had more control than it had ever had before.  Even when I left the path, my mind was clouded and dark, I couldn't think straight for weeks.  It is a place that has more power over me than I prefer, so I largely leave it be, but there are still things that can be learned from it without actually taking the Path.

So little is truly well known about those trees, about that dark road, but some things are common knowledge:

1. Everyone's favorite weight-loss success story has some major influence over the place. It is believed to be his realm, or perhaps a barrier between his world and ours.
2. It can be used to accelerate travel, people can walk a few yards down the Path, and travel hundreds of miles on our land.
3. Traveling there is not a good idea, especially if you are not prepared, it has a way of infecting your mind, and no qualms about killing off the occasional trespasser.

Yeah, that's about it, sorry guys, that's all I can find that is even slightly reliable and consistent.  I should start scouring, more of the old blogs again, I suppose.  But for this one I'm leaving you with a request, please feel free to share any experiences you have had with the path, or any theories you've developed on it, this is one of those posts where I'll probably come back and add in the details later.

See you around

-Cage

Dreaming Is Free

O.k., I don't even like Blondie all that much, but it was that or a MLKJ reference, and this seemed less cliche.  Yes, that's right, it's time for my first semi useful research post, also known as the reason I started this blog.   I figured I would start on something easy, but still something that most of us can relate to: Dreams.  As I'm sure most of you have experienced, our tall acquaintance seems capable of influencing our dreams, and even without his hand some dreams seem to have a deeper purpose, and a higher function.

Dreaming begins when a person enters R.E.M (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which tends to be around 90 minutes after they fall asleep.  While there is no generally accepted explanation for why we dream, it is evident that without entering REM sleep we quickly lose the ability to function.  People who have gone several days without entering rem sleep often experience hallucinations, shortened attention spans, an inability so perform complex mental functions, and occasionally physiological reactions.  Dreams can seem to last hours or days, but in actuality they rarely last for longer than ten minutes.  This, more than anything, is a testament to the human brains untapped potential, if our subconscious is able to play out fantasies of such detail that much faster than we could ever experience them in real life, than the brain is capable of compiling and compressing more data in its free time than all the supercomputers in the world.  This also means that if our favorite dream demon can send these images to us, then he is capable of processing as much as our minds can handle on a consinouns and deliberate level.  There are many theories as to the purpose of dreams, including the ideas that they effect our long term memory, how we perceive individual memories, and how we remove unused emotions or sensations, these theories are not all bound together, but neither are they mutually exclusive, meaning if one had power over dreaming, he could possibly effect all these other mental functions as well.

Dreaming also has psychological implications.  Dreams are often seen as an opportunity to play out different scenarios in our head, with improved understanding of the results but no risk to ourselves.  Many people have claimed that dreaming has provided them with answers to problems that they couldn't solve while awake, showing another example of how much potential we have locked away.  Our favorite pervert, Freud, believed that dreams were a chance for the Id to live out its fantasies without the repercussions that would normally keep the ego or superego from stopping it.  He also believed that dreams were a way to conquer our emotions in stressful or confusing situations.

Dream interpretation is a heavily explored and long existing field of study, bordering on the realm of accepted science.  Many notable psychologists and ancient civilizations have contributed to the study of understanding dreams.  Despite all of these, or perhaps because of them, we are often left with many different interpretations for each dream.  One person could claim that a single dream represents several different issues manifesting themselves in a single scene, and someone else could say that the same dream focuses solely on a single issue, unrelated to the other person’s interpretations.  The fact is, to fully understand most dreams you need a lot of context, education, and practice, and I have very little of any in this field, so I'm not even going to try to fully explore this topic.

EDIT: A new note, one that is primairly speculation at this point, but I have found enough information that I feel comfortable talking about it here with the proper disclaimer.  There is evidence that the Slender Man is not the only creature capable of entering people's dreams.  At this point what evidence I have found leans towards the theory that whoever or whatever intiates the dream has the most power over the reciver.  This means that, if I am correct, Slender Man and creatures of a similar nature do not actually enter your dreams, rather they "manufacture" dreams, which they then place in your mind for you to view and interact with.  again this is just a theory, and it does not diminish the effects a dream can have on your mind, it is just an explination of how these dreams can occur.  I think that He can still "enter" dreams, but he does not have as much control in this situtaion as it is still "your dream."  Take from this what you will, it is hardly a breakthrough, but I always love stumbling across new information.  If you have any new ideas or evidence let me know.

Well that's all I have on the topic of dreaming for now, though new discoveries do happen from time to time, and every now and then my research will reveal some new light on a topic I have already explored, so it is entirely possible I will return and improve this information from time to time.  I know for a fact my roommate just committed to writing a paper on this subject, so maybe I'll steal some of his work when he is finished.  Also, please do share some of your own dreams below, I'm interested in seeing what all of your experiences are.

See you around

FreedomCaged