I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. My last record from outside the Empty City indicates that it’s been about 8 months, if the post date on this computer is correct. I have no way to verify that, though. I’ve reached out, once or twice, other opportunities allowed me the chance to comment on other blogs, send emails, once or twice I even got to leave a physical message in the human world.
For all the good that did.
Really I’ve been out of the world for years. The Real World, the Runner World, a few others I’m not ready to talk about yet. I’ve been a ghost: on my own and out of the way except for the inescapable gravity of the Fears and a few choice moments of personal weakness. I guess this is another of those moments, The Empty City generally seems to have an agenda, and letting me reach out when it’s seen me reject the opportunity before is probably intentional.
Right now I’m in what one might generously call a library. There are tall wooden shelves reaching up to nearly the ceiling, and more of the same on the second floor, all arranged into neat little rows. I’ve scoured both floors and found a grand total of six books. Two on the first floor and four on the second. I claimed all of them before I came back to the collection of desks I’m sitting at now and tried turning on this computer.
I feel an opening. If I stopped right now and ran, out the door, right, left at the building with the chipped stone, up two flights of stairs, and through the window I could make it.
I could still make it.
It’s still open, but now it’s too late. It’ll close before I get there.
The name of this place is a misnomer, this “city” isn’t empty, it’s very very far from empty. I could step outside right now and look up and three blocks away I’d see a tower, stretching so tall into an empty sky I couldn’t make out its height. Stretching the height of the earth, probably.
The opening is gone now.
I’m going to queue up three more posts. An intro, a study, and if I can manage it a story. If I can find another computer before this month ends I’ll probably pull the story. It’s that sort of indecision that got me here, hell I think it’s what made me. But it’s also kept me alive, it’s given me tools and options I wouldn’t have. If you really need me follow the alphabet, but honestly… you’re probably safer where you are.
So yeah, I haven't been posting much lately, partially because I don't really see much of a point in telling you all about every thing I protect Elizabeth from, and everything I have to do to put her in further danger, and partially because most of that isn't interesting enough to relate anyways. But I suppose there's no point in hiding this, so I might as well make another post while I'm here.
Elizabeth is in the hospital. In all likelihood she'll be fine, though, with luck she'll be a little fuzzy on what happened. I'm here, too, waiting for her to wake up. The doctors say it's a concussion, nothing serious but that they wanted to keep her for observation. I know I should be concerned for her, worried if she's o.k, but all I can think about is how stupid it was that she got it in the first place, and how if she had actually thought things through this wouldn't even be an issue. Instead she elected to take an action that could have major repercussions for both of us, when it would clearly have been safer to back off.
Right, you probably want the whole story. Elizabeth and I had been at the library studying, because an eldritch abomination isn't really proper motivation to ignore your schoolwork, is it? Well when we reached her apartment Phillip was leaving it. Now ignoring the fact that Phillip was being an idiot and should have told me about his plans to leave yet another creepy message in her apartment, I'd have to say that any one's first reaction to a masked man leaving your apartment late at night should be running in the opposite direction. That is, of course, even before you realize that said masked person is a servant of an incredibly powerful monster that just happens to be stalking you on a regular basis. And yet, she chose to chase him. I honestly had no idea she could even run that fast but Elizabeth almost tackled him before they reached the stairs. After barely a minute of wrestling she had gotten his mask off, and it was clear she recognized him. I'll give Phillip this: he knows how to take advantage of a shocked opponent. When she paused to wonder why he was behind the mask he kicked her legs out beneath her and threw her against the railing. The sound of her head hitting the railing was not a pleasant one, but her loss of conciseness solved a lot of short term problems. Unfortunately, Phillip, genius that he is, wasn't finished, evidently still in full on survival mode he took out a knife and was about to bring it down on her chest. Fortunately, I had moved close enough to grab him at this point and prevent that. I had to break his nose again, but I don't really consider that to be a negative thing at this point, in fact, I found it thoroughly satisfying. But at the end of it all, I sent the proxy on his merry little way and called an ambulance, and now I'm writing this on a tablet in a hospital room waiting for her to wake up. If she remembers too much I may have to have a Tall Gentleman ease her memory a little bit.
Speak of the literal dev il. Well I guess that m eans I don 't hav e to arran ge an ythin g m yself. I'll fin ish this later.
So yes, Elizabeth is fine and awake, and it's too late for me to care enough to go back and edit this post to reflect that properly. Basically she doesn't remember enough to point Phillip definitively, but it's looking like she knows "her assailant" from somewhere. I guess it's good they never actually interacted beyond being in the same class. But he's still probably going to be receiving a visit from the cops shortly enough, so there's one useless helper down the tubes. Not like he was ever really an effective proxy, I'm almost hoping they send someone competent to replace him. I'm just wanting this whole thing to be over now, it's getting tiring.
One last thing: bloggers new system for writing posts sucks, someone make them change it back.
Yes it's that magical time of year where all the partially educated twenty-somethings throw caution to the winds and abandon campus for exciting retreats with plenty of alcohol and no parental supervision. And while I would no doubt love to join many of my contemporaries in (give me a moment to ask Google) Las Vegas this year, find a way to get my Slender friend caught on MTV and segue it into the stalking and subsequent evisceration of the entire cast of "Jersey Shore", it seems as though I actually have other obligations ( a lot of effort and spellchecking went into that joke, I hope you appreciate it). Unfortunately those obligations do require me to be out of town for a few days, and that means I'm going to be away from my computer for a few days, maybe a week tops.
Honestly this doesn't really mean anything significant, I simply won't be posting on your blogs or making in new posts for that time, and there's only so much of a chance that I'd be doing that anyways. The only real reason I'm making this post is because I'm tired of having that other one as my most recent post. I've tried to erase it, I've tried to edit it, I've tried to figure out who was behind it, but I'm still no closer to figuring any of this out. SO to whoever keeps hijacking my blog:
STOP IT.
I'm dealing with enough things right now, and I really don't need some stupid hacker trying to tick me off. I'm not sure why you're writing these things, I'm not sure why you're targeting me, but all you're doing is pissing me off, and quite frankly, I've got no problem slitting your throat and letting you bleed out. Right now you're a distraction, and relatively low on my list of concerns, but if you ever turn into an actual nuisance I'm going to get a lot more serious about tracking you down, and in case you didn't catch it: you don't want that happening.
Bah, I'm starting to get tired of all this blogging stuff anyways, I think I'm actually going to enjoy my time off from this.
If you've seen my comment then you already know: that wasn't posted by me. I'm not sure who posted that on my blog, or why, but whoever it was knows some things that they shouldn't, as at least part of that post was true, even though I hadn't told anybody about it yet. Unfortunately I can neither erase nor edit the post, so I can't get rid of it, I'm not sure how this was done, I even looked a the HTML for the thing and it won't let me change it. I'm guessing most of you can grasp the unfortunate implications of this problem, but unlike the Phillip incident I have a feeling that this will actually be seen by whoever is messing with me, so I'm going to repeat what I said then: if you come forward, I'm not going to kill you, but if I catch you through other means (and one of my majors is computer science, I will figure out how you did this) I'll need a very good reason to let you live. On my good days I'm never in the mood to handle these kind of violations of my privacy, and right now I''m dealing with a whole lot more than I normally have to, and I will not tolerate distractions like this when I am already in such a delicate situation.
Anyways, I just wanted to post this to clear up any misunderstandings that may have occurred because of that last post. I was going to share what actually happened last weekend in this post, but that feels like it deserves it's own page, so I'm going to type it up separately and post it in a little bit.
I was going to put up a post today, but it still needs work, so instead I figured I'd just put up something simple. No bonus points if you guess who the band is, it should probably be obvious by now.
For the record, I have no idea who Mirwin is, I just selected the first video that had the lyrics in the video. Now I need to get some sleep, it's been a long couple of days.
Hello and a Merry 2012. How were your perspective New Years, I heard about the proxy party and all that excitement, I've got to get invited to one of those things, they sound like a blast. Anyways, I spent my New Years on the highway, trying my hand at being the good guy for a bit. It didn't exactly end well. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.
It turns out that one of the many bloggers I regularly chat with, Robin, of Butterfly Boy, was in a bit of trouble and needed a ride. Normally I would have let the responsibility fall to someone else, but he was relatively close and I had no other obligations I needed to fulfill for the next few days, so I decided to give him a lift. I thought surely there was nothing wrong with helping out a friendly guy, I could learn a few things in advanced and trick all of you into thinking I was a decent person.
I woke up early the next morning and drove out to Memphis, to a school where Robin was waiting, I got there a little early and saw a a big tall guy leaning against a tree, half asleep. Sure enough it was Robin, he was a little wary of me a first (probably just freaked out by my appearance) , but after he calmed down and had eaten a bit he was excessively grateful. Seriously though, Robin, there is actually such a thing as too much gratitude, and you really don't have to pay me back for the trip at all.
Anyways, the trip itself was uneventful for the most part, we talked some, but nothing really substantial was said. I wanted to get to California in a single trip so there really wasn't all that much regard for the speed limit. We finally made it to Robin's apartment around four or five in the morning on New Year's Day, and by that point I was pretty sleep deprived, so I agreed to come in for a soda before going to find a hotel to stay for the rest of the day. That's about the time things went bad. I'll let Robin elaborate on it if he wants, but I'd rather not get to into it, the whole ordeal just gave me a migraine. The short story is that his roommate, Jenna, didn't take a shining to my irresistible charisma, and she made a slight mistake as to where exactly my alliances were. It was an understandable mistake, but one I've grown tired of people making, and as I said, I was sleep deprived. I... Lost control for a brief moment, fortunately I recovered and left before any permeant damage was done.
After that I spent about a day recovering, and then roughly half a day in California, and then yesterday afternoon I headed back home I got back late this afternoon, and have since been catching up with everything going on in the community. I have to hand it to the proxies, they sure know how to spend New Year's Eve.
And now for some exciting news: The Overseer has finally decided to open the doors to one of his miraculous facilities that seem to be capable of warding off The Product, as he calls him, and let me get a tour of the place. I've been looking forward to this, and I'm hoping he'll submit to an interview while I'm there, so you can look forward to one or two posts about that when I return.
This is looking to be an exciting new year, and I can't wait to see what it brings. Here's hoping at least two or three of you are still alive next year.
Hello everyone, and happy holidays (I would say Merry Christmas, but the day has come and gone, and the saying would therefore be belated). I'm really just checking in at this point, and as a result this will be a shamefully lacking in the psychological and philosophical insight you have all undoubtedly come to know and tolerate. I do have a personal story for you, albeit a somewhat boring one, I know how some of you people seem to enjoy those things, so I guess I'll begin with that.
I saw someone who was hunted today. I was at the store in my home town (it's not a huge place, but it's a much more populated area than where my college is), picking up some groceries and other necessities. Anyways, as I was browsing I felt a hunted near by, I looked around and was able to pinpoint him pretty quickly, a tall ragged man with light brown hair and an impressive beard. If I had to guess I would definitely put him on the runner's end of the spectrum, he had an old backpack and that slightly crazy look in his eye. He looked, felt, and to be perfectly blunt, smelled like he had been on the run for several years, at the very least he'd been at it long enough to accumulate the lifestyle and appearance of a homeless beggar. I watched him discreetly as he purchased several cans of food, at one point I believe he actually spotted me, but he showed no signs of knowing who I was, outside of an increased paranoia that seemed to show up whenever he made eye contact with anyone, including the cashier. As he left the store he walked quickly down the road, I considered following him for a moment, but I decided against it, I could not positively influence his life one way or the other, and I don't believe I would have learned much from him that could have helped me. I didn't notice any proxies around when I saw him, and good old Slender didn't make an appearance, so at least he was not being followed while I was there. While my curiosity was piqued, I doubt this will actually affect me, after all, it seems there are more and more hunted with each passing day, and this isn't the first time I've seen one who didn't realize my nature, so it should all be irrelevant.
Now on to more relevant matters: I have a few plans for blog posts, but those will have to wait a little while, as they either require more research or "can't be revealed, yet." Many of the latter may never be posted, but I know for a fact that some will be after a certain amount of time. As it stands, this will likely be my last blog post for the year, so cheers and see you in 2012 I guess. I'll probably change the format of this blog up a little bit, I'm not sure what it'll look like yet, so if you get on here and everything looks hideous don't worry, that's hopefully not the final look. Last of all, I want to point out that I am a relatively broke college student, and as a result I'm considering signing up for that AdSense deal google keeps pestering me about. If you have a problem with that feel free to comment your protest, but frankly, I'm providing a service here (if not a terribly great one), and I like money at least as much as the next guy, assuming he isn't a banker or named in Forbes. So that's about it for now, enjoy yourselves out there, and see you next year.
Oh, and one last thing before I forget, I'll soon be adding a new page that will function as a sort of table of contents for the blog. It will have a link to each post that I've made and a breif summary of what was said there, and what was said in the comments. People trying to catch may now rejoice. Even though my blog is not a personal story, I always know that I love it when I can get caught up to the general information quickly so I don't feel as though I've missed as much when I begin commenting on present posts.
Hey everybody, I don't like going a full week without some kind of post (and lets face it: my last one wasn't all that groundbreaking) so lets get the first part of this out of the way quickly. Self-deprecation, poor excuses, apologies for poor excuses, apologies for apologizing for poor excuses. Good, I think that saved a full 90 seconds with that, on to business.
My plan (because that always works out) is to put out a post on binary codes this week. Following that I should have the case study I have been tyring to work on for a little over a week now ready, it's just a little depressing writing about people who are already dead, but I will try to put more work into it to get it finished. Finally, my interview with Dia, I have everything ready, but I'm struggling to find the correct amount of balance in free time and privacy to do the Skye chat I wanted, but I do have your e-mail, Tide, and I'll let you know when I can make it work, if worst comes to worst we can just do it over a chat engine, it doesn't revel as much, but it gets the job done.
Next I want to mention that blogger seems to have reset my last poll, as I distinctly remember seeing more than 5 votes on it earlier in the week. The confusing bit about this is that it didn't seem to erase all of the votes, just some of the later ones, not that it really matters, I obviously won't be recording the poll in this case. So I'll probably try to think of a different question this time, as it seems that last time about a third of the votes went to "other" and I'd rather see more votes on the analyze I can answer concretely. And not that I'm running out of ideas or anything, but if any of you have ideas or suggestions for polls feel free to let me know, they aren't just for me you know.
Now I want to address an anonymous comment left on Cage's blog (for those of you that don't know this is where my darker half, for lack of a better term, vents, it's mostly useless ramblings of emotion and violence, no real substance), normally things like this wouldn't get their own paragraph, but this made me laugh for a good five minutes so I feel its earned it. I usually don't even check the comments for this blog (if you want to get a coherent answer about something that is said there ask me here), but because of the picture that was put up there I was actually checking the comments to see if anyone had decrypted it. That's when I noticed this Anonymous (like I don't know who you are, who else talks like that) comment there apparently challenging me. First off, if you want to play a game of wit, I'm over here, don't pester the part of my personality that deals with immediate problems and brute force solutions; it's like telling someone you can beat them up when they stopped listening, it doesn't matter weather you can or not, it just looks stupid. And attacking through an anonymous account when it's pretty clear who you are is just even more stupid, in fact just for that you lose 5 points (it would be more, but it made me laugh so hard I actually decided to take off fewer). You do know "handling you" only requires the deletion of that post and disabling anon comments, right, I really hope that wasn't your best taunt. In fact I like all of your insults and taunts, they're good for a laugh, and as such I welcome your little feud, or vendetta, or trolling campaign, or whatever it is you want, so bring it over here, if you can make an insult that actually causes me any mental distress at all I'll give back all of the useless points that don't mean anything you lost from the anonymous comment.
O.k., last thing, and far more important than the prior paragraph, I notice that several those whom I frequently associate with are going through... "things" right now (you know who you are), and if you need to talk about it or anything my E-mail is available through my profile. If not I get that too, and I'll just continue seeing you around the blogs, but know I am thinking about your various situations.
I'd like to close by introducing you to a band I discovered while searching for some more easy studying music. I'm of the opinion that good music should always be shared, and maybe it's just the romantic in me, but I love this song, and it feels appropriate for the coming winter months, so enjoy.
Hello all, most of you by now have hopefully learned enough about me to know that I am a creature of knowledge, I love discovering new facts. One of my favorite ways isn't through reading some long generally purposed book or website or even a blog post that is aimed at a large group of readers, rather, I prefer personal interactions, I like meeting and interacting with people who have their own ideas or personal experience. Therefore I am putting this post up as an open invitation to all future readers, if you have anything relevant to add to a post, or need any questions answered that relate to it please feel free to comment on that post, no matter how old it is. I have set up my system specifically to notify me of any comments on my old blog posts so I will be able to respond to them without having the check through all of my postings regularly. I realize that right now, while I can simply scroll down the page to see if the number of comments is the same as it was yesterday, this seems a bit like a pointless post, however I want it early enough that anyone trying to catch up on my blog is able to react to all of it as a current reader would.
I also want to make sure that this isn't just a useless post, for now, so I'm letting all of you current readers know that I am currently working on a post about communities, how they develop, the psychology of their members, and the different types. After that I'll probably move on to hive minds, mostly in animals, so don't get your hopes up too very much, I am also welcoming any suggestions of places to research for these topics if you have ideas. And finally, I am opening the comments for you to ask questions about me, this isn't going to be a highly personal blog, at least not in the posts, but I think that it is important we all get to know each other a little better. Be aware of Rule #1 as The Gargoyle so aptly called it, I may not be able or willing to answer all of your questions honestly, but I will try to give you a good idea of who I am.
