Scientific Method

I believe that the Slender Man following me is… observing me. While it itself is trying very hard not to be observed. You might think this obvious for a stalking creature, but I mean that I believe it is trying to glean knowledge beyond when to strike. My scans indicate it’s been following me for some time, and still is, but I have seen it only once. In most cases, it seems by now I would have seen it at least once more (though perhaps reading/viewing the logs so “late in the game” has simply skewed my expectations). And those sounds so early… It makes me think it may be trying something different.

It is trying to learn. What I can’t be sure of. I assume that it would want to learn what scares me, considering that its modus operandi is to terrify victims before they disappear, or die. I can’t explain precisely why I feel that it is trying to learn about me, but I suppose it just seems… cautious. I could simply be misinterpreting its actions, but my gut is telling me that it’s trying to learn. The sounds could have been for probing me. Could it have predicted the scans? How does it expect me to react? How should I react? Why did it choose to show itself to me? I still have too little concrete information to infer anything useful.

At any rate, I will be careful and observe it as best I can. It's likely still too soon to be making such a conclusion, anyways. I will keep my eyes open and my mind sharp. The mind is the only effective sword and shield that I know of at the moment. I intend to use it as much as possible.

Confirmed Sighting

I have finally confirmed a sighting of a Slender Man. It is absolutely stalking me now. When I first spotted it, I had just finished a class and was walking back to my dorm. I looked up and there it was. It was approximately nine to ten feet tall, no more than two feet wide at the shoulders, faceless. And not fifty feet from the exit. I fumbled in my pocket for my phone, but by the time I had it raised and ready to take a picture, the creature was gone.

I luckily had a good look at precisely where it had been standing. It was next to the trunk of a large tree (by which I made the above size estimates), near an exposed root. After recovering from the initial shock, I went to investigate the site. Here, I must admit that I am no tracker, despite my father having been an accomplished hunter. However, I could not find any disturbance where it had been standing.

There was no possibility of it being the wrong spot. I had snapped my head to exactly where it had been standing a moment before. It was gone, but I kept my eyes locked. I didn’t take my eyes off the patch of ground for an instant as I walked to it. There can be no mistake. It was exactly the right spot.

There was no imprint suggesting anything resembling feet, no bent grass, no scattered or crushed leaves. It was just like every other piece of ground around it. This is the first bit of evidence that I cannot draw any immediate logical conclusions from, besides the possibility of hallucination. However, given that I have not been quite stressed enough for that and I don’t take any drugs or medication that would have this effect, I can only conclude that this is not a reasonable conclusion.

I’ve hit another solid roadblock, and it’s much more secure than the last one. I can’t use known unknowns or coincidence to dispel it. It was there, it was gone, it left no obvious trace but a memory. I will begin carrying a (marginally) better camera that I will keep in sleep mode on my person at all times.

The Mystic in the Dark

I’ve finished reading through The Mystic. And unfortunately, it seems Strahm is not well. He is fractured mentally from his experiences. He sees visions of a dead man when he drinks enough, and argues with the phantom.

And a surprising development occurred. I didn’t expect to read about Damien, author of Dreams in Darkness, to say the least.

I hadn’t expected it as I personally don’t believe that there was any actual Slender Man activity in that particular log. I viewed it as simply the ramblings of a mentally unstable man after the death of a close friend who happened to have viewed Marble Hornets before the traumatic event, which became incorporated into the delusions.

Strahm, however, believes that the log may have more truth in it than that. Of course, he also now seems to believe in a government conspiracy involving observation of any Slender Man-related events and potentially covering them up.

I cannot say that such a plan is impossible or outside of federal power, but I find it a bit unlikely. Though it does match up with some of the police and other authorities’ behavior regarding abductions, attacks, etc.

At any rate, Strahm seems to believe the cult described by Damien in Dreams in Darkness does indeed exist, and seems to be pursuing leads regarding the organization.

I cannot say that such a “religion” is outside the realm of possibility, however. In fact, considering the length of time this species (Slender Man) has been around, it would not be at all surprising that a religion would be constructed around it. After all, it does seem to have powers akin to a god at times.

However, considering Strahm’s current mental condition, the same of which could be said for Damien, may he rest in peace, I will take this with a rather large grain of salt. I will, however, be keeping an eye on developments, as I have been with other logs (forgive me, but I will only give updates regarding any log if a notable piece of information regarding Slender Men arises; considering recent events in Everyman HYBRID, that may be soon).

I will update again if anything happens.

Brief Update

I apologize for not updating as regularly recently, but I have had an unusually heavy course load lately, and as such, time to even think about updating has been scarce.

However, there has been a development with the Slender Man. The video distortion has become near constant, as best as I can determine. To elaborate, I have been doing what I have come to call “scans.” This is, of course, simply me pulling out my phone, making a short recording as I walk from place to place across campus, shooting my surroundings, and reviewing it to find any defects or consistencies. I have yet to see an actual Slender Man, with my own eyes or through the video recordings (though the low resolution of the video does limit how much detail I could see in the recordings to begin with).

Thus far, the only consistency is that I am near trees when the distortion occurs. This, of course, is meaningless as we have already established that Slender Men prefer wooded areas, and the college campus has small (at most a quarter acre, minimum tens of feet square) tree filled areas within sight of almost any building.

I’m currently trying to determine if there are any more consistencies, such as “favorite” areas for the distortion, or deterioration vs. location correlations. I must admit that I am not hopeful in this endeavor.

At least the noises haven’t been recurring lately, which allows me to sleep. Though who can tell if this is actually a fortunate turn of events or not?

Seeking Truth

Unfortunately, nothing new has occurred. I would have posted this before, but I simply didn’t have the time for a lengthy post. At any rate, I merely wish to say that I finished reading through Ezekiel Strahm’s blog. Or at least, through the parts wherein he seems to still have all his senses. After the incident in the warehouse that apparently resulted in Conaghan’s death, he has seemed less stable.

And I am not sure if anyone ever cracked his account, FBI or otherwise. In fact, I am almost certain the FBI would not do this. They would not use, even hijack, a suspect’s account to look for him. That would immediately tell him they were searching for him. But what’s most jarring is who I think did make that post.

I think Strahm did it.

There’s not much evidence to support it, I admit, except that I noticed a spelling error. The word “bee” was where “been” should have been written. This is definitely another indication that the FBI would not have been involved as that is a juvenile mistake for someone calmly typing properly, as the FBI are supposed to be able to do by nature of their office.

But the reason that the error sticks out in my mind is that Strahm made similar errors throughout his blog. There was a missed letter here, a wrong one there, but never more than one or two per post that I noticed. And these were often very long posts indeed. It fits with Strahm trying to make it seem like someone’s hacked his account and used it for their own purposes, specifically to help catch him.

Maybe he wants to be caught, but I don’t know. More likely I think his mind has fractured, so to speak. I believe his personality was altered by the encounter, or that it has split. Neither is out of the range of possibility when dealing with a Slender Man, as should be apparent by now.

Either way, Strahm still has computer access. He posted about the EverymanHYBRID “rescue” of “Damsel” shortly after the occurrence, and has since created a second blog entitled “The Mystic.” I have not started reading it yet, but it is much shorter than Seeking Truth in addition to being updated. I should be caught up shortly. Perhaps this will give me a clearer picture of Strahm’s current mental state.

Bringing this to a close, I know I’m drawing sweeping conclusions from little evidence here, and honestly I do not like it. But there it is: my gut feeling is superseding my mind on this one. A rather unsettling thought, for me.

Definitely Near

A Slender Man is most certainly nearby. I was taking a recording with my camera phone (though the reason was unrelated to the creature and thus unrelated to this log). After reviewing the recording, I noticed tearing in the video. There was no reason for this to occur at that specific time other than the creature’s involvement, and subsequent attempts at recording in the same area yielded no such defects. The possibility of normal video corruption exists, but is unlikely as it has never occurred before. I will post an update if anything relevant occurs.