Not a lot of time, all is well

So travelling with two insane cultists isn't all that fun, but I will have a nice little story or two for you all if we're lucky enough to stop somewhere that has Internet long enough for me to write something substantial up. Also, I've gotten my hands on a proper camera (it's one of the nice little stories I'll have for you all), so you might all be lucky enough to get photographs of anything I figure is important in the future. Though you will all have to deal with a lack of fingers in the shots. Sorry to dissapoint anyone.

You'll love this one, Broeckchen

So I wake up Christmas morning and all my colleagues are already awake, sitting in a semicircle around my bed watching me sleep. Just so everybody knows, that's not normal behaviour amongst Touched, although sometimes when they get too Taken they will just sit there and stare at people for a while, so I guess you could say it's like a very, very extreme version of normal behaviour.

Naturally, once I noticed them all sitting there I assumed they were going to kill me and flew upright in a panic, ready to defend myself to the death. Turns out they just wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas and give me some presents. So yeah, kinda awkward. Unsurprisingly, it was apparently James' idea to do so in such a manner, and he's also at least obliquely responsible for the presents I got. Or the present I got and the present I'm meant to pass on. Or the Christmas cards. I'm not really sure what they're meant to be.

Well shi- shoot. I was going to say shoot

I see you've all met James. 


If I could make a request, can we please not talk about the 'content' of his post and comments? I'm sure you understand why I don't want what he wrote about discussed where prying eyes can find it. But I can say that when he says "do Not listen tO The bliNd foOl, andreW. To defy his light is to Bring UtTer ruin down upon you. Safety can Only be fOund in eterNal service." I believe him, and will be doing what he has told me to do and when he has told me to do it. 


I don't have a clue how he managed what he did, but at least it puts a new light on one or two conversations we've had recently. Lately, when we've been going over whatever plans we have for my colleagues and I, he's been telling me not to do anything rash or foolish if I 'happened to be alive after the solstice' and he also said that I was not to 'act' until it became obvious 'now' was the perfect time, and I think we can all see what he was referring to. He stressed the word 'perfect' several times and dropped 'obvious' in almost as much, so while you all probably want me to do what he's talked about right the hell now, I will be waiting until the perfect moment shows itself, and does so in such an obvious matter that I will be unable to ignore it. And besides, James has been doing this job for a very long time, so I'm not sure how long 'soon' is supposed to be.


And if one of you mentions something that subsequently closes whatever gap James seems to think is coming up, I will find you and kill you and I am not even joking. And then if I'm lucky, He will reward me for destroying a Heretic, nothing will change and I'll keep on going with my job. So please, play it safe and don't mention anything. On that note, I've changed my password and had a little chat with James. He's acting particularly dogmatic and denies having any memory of posting on my blog. He's on record as saying he wouldn't have any part in something so blasphemous as a blog about Him, so I'm 99% certain all of James' actual mind is back hanging from the place I can't mention without bleeding out my nose and I'm just talking to the Taken he's become again. 


Which is a problem, because he won't leave me alone. He's quite literally sitting right next to me as I write this, muttering mutinously about heretical behaviour and foolish Servants. When I tried to talk to him about privacy, leaving me alone and what-not, all he did was rant at me about our duty and 'His work'. Best I can tell, we've apparently been given a task when the boss dropped him back here, and that task seems to involve watching me constantly and planning a trip around the country to visit everybody in my phonebook. If I'm going to guess, whatever opportunity I'm supposed to take will probably show up during it, since it's going to involve a lot of travelling.


Anyway, it's about dinnertime and James is starting to get angry, so I guess this is it for now, or at least until we've eaten. And if anyone's interested, nothing happened to me in my hotel room at all. Quite literally, the most interesting thing that did happened was my head ached and my nose bled a little bit on Monday night right around when James says He came visiting down the street at the Internet cafe, so I guess my internal migraine-and-blood-based warning system is still functioning. Yippee.


Also also (It's a vocal habit I have, ignore me.)


Writing stories? That was your grand plan? Sorry to sound so fatalistic, but I'm fairly certain if that's all you guys can come up with then we're all in a lot more trouble than I thought we were. Seriously, I was expecting some huge move against the Touched or something, or a massive fi 


Damn it. Migraine's back like you wouldn't believe. I guess can't talk about that, either. Although I guess it's not really a surprise. Burn? I can say burn. Burning things - things that most definitely don't involve my boss and are most definitely not (paraphrasing myself here) 'unable to move every few nights to stay safe' might've helped a bit. There's a reason He uses fire sometimes - being that it is the most destructive force He could possibly imagine. But then again, maybe He just doesn't enjoy it when you do that, rather than is actually weakened by it. Like I said, I'm not one for theories.


Anyway, I really do have to go, James is about to start preaching to the entire cafe about my heresy if I don't stop now, and I'm not even joking. I'll probably be back after dinner, but then again, I'll have to convince James to come so maybe not.

Fools

see How the twists and turns of humanity's calEndars fail to grasp the ebb and flow of tiMe, nor the course of the sun through the sky. for here it is less than an hour until midnight And the day of the summer solstice, while elsewhere the day of recKoning has already bEgun, and iS called so Many other things.

but it is no matter, for you will all be convErted by his light, in time. those of you Who are not will die like dogs - the filthy heRetIcs thaT you are. even now, andrEw thinks his work secure and himself free and protected by his brother's blindness and their unbreakable link. BUT the TrutH is plain to sEe - his brOther makes him no freer than the most Loyal of his faithful, no more sane the the most taken amongst the halloweD and no more protected than Carelessly hOarded passworDs lEave his wordS.

eAch of you, as all who know aRe, arE hiS. my lord comes for you All and you will not escape. pray to your heathen pretender gods, For prayEr will be all you have. time growS shOrt, and the hOur of salvation is Near at hand. 

i must go. my master comes to stand before me just as i knew he would, and i bathe in the warm glory that is his light. YOU fooLs cannot bear aLl that he is, while I stand tall iN his light. having embraced him, whErEver i go he lights the way through the Dark in turn embracing me. in Time, yOu will see his light too.

you all RUN and hide. i have his work To dO, and i will not falter. i will stand beside him, and his light will PROTECT me in mY travels and my darkest hOUrs. it will guide my missions, and lead my way in my waRs. you will all fall.

do not despair. my BRethren cOmes for you, and THey will hEal all youR wounds.

See you all on the other side...

... I hope. So checked in today and immediately decided I hated my hotel room. Good new is I've found a 24 hour Internet cafe around the corner(ish). I've been stalling going back to the hotel since because the TV channels are lacklustre, there's no Internet there and the whole thing feels claustrophobic, but if I want to be back by twelve I need to leave soon. I'll be out of contact and protected by the hotel's security for the next two or so days, and the only people I plan on seeing will be delivering room service. I'm not even going to bother checking on my colleagues, since an order to stay in their rooms unless He says otherwise is more than enough to fulfil the responsibilities of my job, and frankly I'm not in the mood to manage crazies right now, all things considered.

I don't expect any funny business because you need a key-card to make the lifts work, but if there's one thing I've learnt in this job it's that there's no such thing as too paranoid, so I'll be sleeping with the knife under my pillow as always. I really hope I don't see any of you in the next few days, and I'm practically certain whatever you're planning isn't going to work, but good luck, nonetheless.

I'll probably post a report on the twenty third, if anything noteworthy happens and I'm still alive. If nothing goes down, then I guess I'll just comment here so anyone who cares will know I'm still alive. See you all then, or not. I guess we'll see.

Questions, Answers and the Solstice

M asking about trees gave me an idea, so I thought I'd set up a nice little blog post for anybody to ask me questions they have about my job or my boss. It's basically midday right now and I'll be hanging around here for most of the day, I figure, so feel free to fire away if you're reading. I'll post a comment saying when/if I have to leave my Internet connection, so until then, I'll at least be checking the blog every few minutes. I'll probably be on tomorrow, too - since I know for a fact this weekend is going to be uneventful, barring an unforeseen emergency.

And another thing - three days, twenty one hours and fifty seven minutes to the Solstice (did I get that right? I'm still not sure I made the time conversions correctly when I set the countdown clock on my laptop), and I have the hotel rooms booked. Yes, that's right, my colleagues and I are going to ground for the Solstice. On my insistence, might I add. That's is, of course, if I'm lucky and He doesn't show up between then and now to Walk us all somewhere for the big showdown you all seem to think is going to happen. I'm not the kind of Servant you ever see bothering Heretics anyway, so I'm actually quietly confident that even if He does come to take my colleagues somewhere, He won't need me. Or at least, that's what I've been hoping and praying for. I'll be honest in saying I have absolutely no idea what's going to go down on the Solstice or if anything will be going down at all, being that I'm not the kind of person who's all that well informed in my little organisation.

If I were Him, and everybody on the Internet was talking about how they were investing all their hopes in fighting back on a particular date, then I'd probably do the smart thing and just not bother anybody on that particular day. Actually now that I think about it, has anybody considered the possibility that the Solstice will come and go, and all that will happen is you'll spend all day looking out for Him and His 'children' while we all hide? It's what I'm planning to do, and I've heard absolutely nothing about special plans from anybody.

Then again, I do live in Australia, where we'll be having the Summer Solstice, rather than the Winter one, so maybe the opportunity for whatever it is you all think you're going to do only exists in countries that lie above the equator. Personally I have no idea how or why the Solstice was picked as the date to fight back. Maybe there's something I'm missing, being relatively recent to Internet discussions concerning Him, but it never made much sense to me.

So I guess, in the spirit of this post being one for questions, I'd like to ask, why did you guys pick the Solstice to fight back, and what are you planning to do? And yes, I know I work for the enemy, so if you don't want to tell me what you're doing, that's fine. But why the Solstice?

Celebrities and Siblings

So I'm back from the walk and I feel a whole lot better (that's a relative better, not a 'better' better). If anyone cares, the theory I mentioned in my comments two posts previous was correct. We just happened to be a little less lucky than I would've liked in following through on it, and had to chase the theory further than might've been necessary. It's still better than chasing runaways halfway across the country, though, so I guess I can't complain.


Actually, I can. I've got a splitting headache, my trilby's at 'home' at the foot of my mattress looking like it's been trodden on (because it has) and my favourite business shirt is covered in blood from another god damn nosebleed. All together that means the next time I need one of my colleagues to listen to me, I won't be able to dress up in my 'business' getup to intimidate them. And these are just the practical concerns.

I don't know where He is, and it's been hours since I actually saw Him, but I still can't shake the feeling He's watching me, like He needs to know I'm not about to kill myself or start running because of what He's made me do this time. Last I saw Him He was staring at the new girl, waiting for her to wake up so He can start with the theophany and divine revelations all over again and make sure she doesn't break free this time. I'm not sure how far she's gone, because she was resisting Him when she ran, but I have a feeling she'll be hanging from the Tree for most of the night before she's singing his praises with the rest of them.

I did some things I'm not proud of yesterday and today, but the real kicker is that each of them seemed like the best thing to do at the time. The first few were good, morally sound choices, even. After all, nobody on either side of the game benefits from a Touched (or a Taken, at the time I wasn't sure if this wasn't just a symptom of her losing it completely) running rampage on their own, so why wouldn't I lead the chase to go get her from where I was sure she'd ran to?

Turns out that's all bullshit and she tried to escape because His Touch hadn't held as well as He thought it would. We hunted her down and led Him straight to her in the process. It's ironic - really and truly ironic, in the classical sense of the word. 

Maybe it's just what I tell myself, but I know when we were chasing her I believed I was saving somebody's life in the future, protecting all the people she'd have to steal from and would probably kill without me looking after her. Not that I don't expect people to be killed now I've brought her back. Anything I do leaves people dying eventually, so I just chose the options that might mean fewer do.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't try to rationalise it. If I'd known - if He'd come before we found her and made me understand what was happening, I still would've done it to protect my brother and because I'd die if I didn't. On the note of my brother and because it was asked, Ben's one of the lucky ones - Blind as they come.

Well, perhaps not as Blind as they come. He was always convinced being twins allowed us some kind of passive telepathy, though I maintained it was always bullshit and we could never prove it either way. We certainly never had the same dreams when we were young, or I wouldn't be stuck here trying to make sure we never do. If he was right though, then maybe I'm poisoning him just by being caught up in all of this. Maybe he's keeping me sane by being free of it. Who knows? Perhaps Ben will wake up one day to find a tall, faceless man in the closet and there'll be nobody to blame but me.

Heh. And I promised myself I wouldn't tell anybody I have a brother. It's a shame I also promised I wouldn't lie to you all, what with M asking why I can't just run. That's the problem with having principles and secrets. You can't keep both, and I'm not sure I can claim to have either any more, seeing as how I just doomed somebody to a lifetime of insanity today because I thought she already was. The road to hell, indeed.

I was going to spend a little while here answering your question as extensively as possible, M, seeing as our time zones make communication difficult, but I'm really not in the mood and 'My old teacher might be Taken, but he isn't crazy enough to have forgotten to check my loyalties once a month and kill my brother if they're wavering - after all, that is part of the job He gave him' really should suffice for now.

I was also going to say something about Zero commenting on my 'so I should probably explain' post, seeing as he's another hero of mine. Seriously, the shit he's been through nobody deserves. If you're both still reading this (why would you be?) you guys are the people I wish I could've become. But I'm not in the mood to grovel in front of people so much braver and so much less selfish than I am like I should, because today is not a good day for anything other than pouring all my self hate and pity into the Internet and letting you all join me.

Because some days I take comfort in knowing that my brother's safe and ignorant. Some days I take comfort in knowing I keep my colleagues from killing for food and money, or just because they're bored and it's all they know how to do. You all know already that some days I take comfort in the bottom of a bottle. On the worst days, the only comfort I take is from knowing I'm on the winning side, where eventually it wont matter what I've done.

And then some days I take girls from their homes while they beg me for things I can't give - like freedom from Him and their little seven year old sister back from wherever He took her, and I don't take any at all.

Sleep well. I know I wont.

Goddamnit

I'm back and i'm fine but damn if i can't type shaking like this. I thought it'd help trying to talk to some sane people. I cant even type fucking people out properly this is so much  worse than when I was drunk this whole thing took me forever to type and I've made about a million errors it's not helping at all I can still feel His eyes on me watching me try to comfort her He's in her dreams I bet you anything. I'll post properly later. I need a walk or something I need to get away.

God, that sounds crazy reading it back, but I cant be fucked punctuating it now. You'll all just have to deal. I'm fine. I really am. I'm just terrified and feeling really dirty and well you all know what it's like with Him watching you and I can't shake the feeling. Heh. Like the lizard on the rock all over again, I swearotfuckingBran.

Small comfort for you all out there hopefully He can't be in two  places at once over too long a distance because He's going to be so busy tonight, you have no idea. But then maybe there's  one for each country - that's one of the theories, right? So maybe just Australia. I'll explain later what I can anyway. This whole thing took me like an hour and it hasn't helped a bit I have to go and I mean it this time.

So this is extremely awkward

I'm hella tired at the moment, so I'm just going to make this quick, while I eat whatever you call the last meal of the day (dinner) when it happens at 11:30 AM (lunch) and you skipped eating at breakfast time because you were out partying, and just apologise for the drunken ramblings of my last post. I've been out all night/morning on something of a bender with the 'McCafe Chick' I mentioned, who does indeed like Vodka but is not so much into guys, which is pretty much just my luck. Though it did make for some nice discussions on the nature of sexuality. Anyway, I said I'd make this quick, so back to it.

Alcohol is something of a coping mechanism for me in the aftermath of a visit from Him, which is not at all healthy, I know, but I'm not much concerned with health these days. It's a painfully long story, but the conclusion is that I'm allowed to keep writing as long as I'm careful not to say something I'll regret, and I also have a new colleague to look after, which was the reason for His visit in the first place. Of course, He didn't say either of those things in as many words, being that He doesn't say words at all, but I'll tell you all about that when I don't need to sleep so much.

And don't fear, faithful audience of three, I have retained my sanity after yet another visit from Him, as I will always do. I don't know what you want to call His effect on a person's brain in the general sense, but I do get quite a bit of that whenever He's around. It's the lizard on a rock as the shadow of a hawk flies by it all over again, pretty much every time, but I've learnt to deal with it. I always recover, though, because He would prefer I remain as useful as possible, and that means near enough to complete sanity.

I'm sure there's a whole lot of irony in there that I could be exploiting for gallows humour (and gallows is about right), but I really am tired. I'll see you all soon.

Oh, and I'm going to go back and edit out that spelling mistake in the labels of my last post, but the rest of it will stay unedited as a reminder to myself of why I can't be trusted with alcohol and an Internet connection. You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to go back and fix every spelling mistake I made. I might not know the first thing about constructing a sentence or even be particularly good at spelling (thank god for spell-check), but I absolutely loathe misspelled words, you have no idea.

Hehehehe

He came and ym head hurts. But I'm not crazy just drunk because that's how I deal with Him once he's all gone. DO you know I don't have to type him all capitals,  but sometimes I'm scared so I try to show respect and my head doesn't hurt as much. Bet you all think I',m crazy but I'm not. Just drunk. Hehehehe big joke what If I'm Touched and I'm just pretending to be sane did ytou think of that. ALL A Joke. OI bought Fable III a while back and it's good, so I really hope they don't cut the power out because I have nothing else to do during the day when I can't sleep.

Did you know Hehehehe corrects to Scheherazade, as the first option. I have no idea what Scheherazade means. I googled it and she was a Persian queen. The persian king was a total player marrying a new virgin everyday and then killing her but she tricked him by telling stories to her sister which he would overhear and then she'd not finish them before dawn, so the king would wait until the next day to kill her so he could hear the end of the story. After a thousand stories she ran out but he'd fallen in love with her, so he let her live. That story gets a happy ending, but mine never will. One day I'll wake up dead in a ditch because HE'S angry with me or just get stabbed by some jerk Heretic.

I was sure someone would accuse me fo being a lier, but all I get is polite thanks from my new buddy Mar and all these messages from Seeker. I get enough of that at work, buddy, so knock it off. You guys are awesome. It's like I only need two people to get a whole crosssection of the Slenderblogs. Everyone being nice and talking in code. Now all I need is somebody to be angry at me for doing something wrong and then we've got the trifecta.

He dopesn't care I'm writing a blog but If I say something He doesn't want you all to know then I'll get impaled or worse. I laughed so loud when I read that, Mar, you're a funny dude. Impaled or wors.e I've hung from His tree for days for my insolence and you're all 'impaled or worse'. HEhehe. You don't even know what that means, because most fo you probably don't even see him. He pays me visits once a week or once a month somewhere like that and I can deal with it. It took me so long to write week. I wrote weel like sixteen times, and I saw that thread on 4chan so I had to get it right before you all posted images making fun of me.

The girl behind the counter looks bored, and she looks like she knows I'm drunk. Maybe I'll offer her some of my Vodka and see where it leads. GOd knows I've spent enough nights alone. Next time wben I 'm sober I'll explain why that might chagne but isn't going to. He dropped off a redhead nad I like redheads and she's about my age so maybe you never know. In case you didn't notice I'm a coward when He's around and just in general, soi like I'm going to ask her out. What would I say? Hey, you want to go see a movie inbetween killing Heretics and mumbling inchorently about how HE SEES YOU?

Not fucking likely. I'm getting an appraising look from the MCcafe chick, like she wishes she could get durnk from me. I'm gonna go now. She kinda looks like a guy I dated once or maybe like his sister would look like, since she's a girl, so maybe I can try the same lines and itll be like Dejavu.

So I should probably explain...

...before I get inundated with hundreds of complaints and claims of wifin' (of course I know what wifin' is, don't even ask) when somebody who knows what I'm talking about finds this blog.

Some of you (and by some of you I mean none of you, dear non-existent audience) are probably wondering why I'm not a gibbering mess with half his brain missing and the other half filled with razor-sharp crazy, just like every other person you've ever seen working for Him. I can't say for sure, because my employer isn't really the talkative type and my colleagues aren't big on questioning His motives, but from what vague indications I have and a little bit of assumption, I'm going to say it's because I do my job best when I'm able to count higher than five and actually remember the vast majority of what I do. Not that I don't have my moments. Nosebleeds and migraines are the most of it, but whenever I try to write something down in pencil it's a real struggle not to put an 'x' through every 'o' I write. Pen's are a little easier to use without provoking everybody's favourite spelling mistake, and keyboards work fine, but it's not like I'm completely immune to His compulsions.

Which brings me to the reason for my blog. It's a theory I've heard bandied about before, that seeks to explain why there seems to be an awful lot of records concerning Him nowadays that continue even into the midst of madness or beyond anything approaching convenience as one attempts to flee from Him. It's correct, as far as I can tell, and goes something like this:

He makes you write, and record and long to tell anybody and everybody, because surely you're just crazy and somebody will point this out and everything will get better, or because surely you're not crazy and somebody else will point this out and nothing will change, but hey, at least they can see Him too. And apparently, as long as you've got a shred of sanity and a tall, faceless friend, you have to write about it and let people know, even if He's not chasing you and doesn't really consider you worth noticing unless one of His other friends needs a splint or a shower. 

Which brings me back to the second and third labels for this post, 'The Job' and 'The Colleagues'. I thought I'd explain what I could without getting anybody killed (especially me), just for interest's sake. It's probably not wise, but very little of what I do nowadays is, and we've already discussed the 'must tell everybody' compulsions I'm having so there's no need to rant on about that being my excuse until I've proved I actually am crazy. Anyway, to sum up my job, I'd say I'm something of a caretaker, provider and advisor for a network of loosely affiliated, partially brain-dead cultists intent on making life hell for people who interfere with their business. 

I've heard us called many things, but the names getting the most truck on the Internet are Hallowed and Agents. Unfortunately for everybody involved, the person who trained me to do what I do referred to the Hallowed as two distinct groups of people, and it's both a habit I've acquired and one which I have desire to change.

The first is the Taken, people who have been Touched so thoroughly by His will that they have almost none of their own left. Between periods of activity focused upon fulfilling His orders, they frequently need to be reminded to eat, bathe or move at all. Some even need me to feed/bathe/move them myself when they're not otherwise occupied pulling on masks, chasing people and writing cryptic messages on the walls of wherever I've got them stashed for now.

The second is the Touched, which my old partner renamed the Hallowed once he learned of the term from me. I don't think I need to tell you where I learned it myself, and I think He might be angry if I did and you subsequently learnt where it was from. Though He does enjoy a challenge and a chase (as far as I can tell), so perhaps not. Still, safe and sorry and all that. 

Anyway, my partner used to call them the Touched because that was what they were - Touched by His will but not Taken by it. For the most part, they're normal, and they can do a pretty good impression of sanity if they want to, but they still love Him with a fervour beyond comprehension and they still like to write in code and capitals all over the walls whenever nobody is watching.

What most of you call Agents he called Servants, believing them to be 'below His notice and unworthy of His touch' but 'aware of their place and eager to serve'. I, myself, am a Servant (neither aware of my place nor eager to serve) while he was a Touched when we met, a Hallowed when he rewrote his little 'Operator's Handbook' and a Taken when our employer came around one time too many times for a favour.

Actually, now I think about it, Hallowed would've probably served as a better title for the Taken, what with the originator of the phrase believing Hallowed to be nothing but the corpse of a person acting in concert with His will. But that is neither here nor there. For clarities sake, I will be sticking to the original titles of Taken, Touched, Servant and Heretic to describe those caught in His web, lest my contradictory definitions confuse you all (yes, that's right - with a grand total of nine page views, ever, I am now going to my non-existent audience as 'you all'). Heretic, obviously, is the title for somebody being hunted by Him who is resisting in whatever manner they've chosen, be it denial, running or even by fighting. If they're stupid, foolish or brave enough to fight. Finally, there is the Blind, who'll I'll probably be referring to as 'the lucky ones' whenever I write about them, since they're oblivious to His existence and untouched by Him.

Which leaves me with 'The Office', the last of the labels I wrote out so I'd remember what I was trying to cover this time round, and which I'm considering taking out. Basically I was being smart and trying to remind myself to work in a reference to my current living conditions on the sly, but I think I'll have to give it to you straight. At present, I'm holed up in an abandoned building with some colleagues of mine that's luckily only two streets over from a McDonalds with free wi-fi and a McCafe which stays open 24/7. Which is how this all started, since I've been sleeping during the day and doing my best to avoid my hide-out during the night because of all the damn sleep-walking and screaming. Since here is the only place open 24 hours a day anywhere nearby that I can charge my laptop, I'm pretty much stuck here. Not that I mind. My current setup is pretty perfect really, which means with my luck I'll be forced to move sometime in the next week.

Anyway, my head's starting to hurt, which either means I'm getting a visitor tomorrow night or I need another cup of coffee to wake me up properly. Either way, I'm going to go get one and call it a day (or a night) here. Who knows, maybe I'll steal somebody's wallet and go clubbing with the cash. God knows I'm starting to run out of ideas for entertaining myself with free McDonalds Internet in the middle of the night that don't involved getting kicked out for indecency.

Here I am.

Let me tell you a story.

When I was young (perhaps seven or eight years old) I used to have dreams. I'm twenty now, so it's obvious that this was quite a while ago - many years and several months prior to June of 2009, a time of little significance to some and of great significance to others - but how long ago or whether or not it happened before certain events isn't really important at this point, so I'll get back to it.

In those dreams, a tall and unnaturally thin man who appeared to have no eyes, ears or nose - but who did possess a mouth filled entirely with razor sharp needle-like teeth - would force His way out of my closet to watch me sleep until the sun rose, ready to attack and eat me if I showed any signs of being awake during the night. This was an especially terrifying dream to have if I did happen to wake up in the middle of the night, for obvious reasons, but I really didn't feel like it made much of a difference whether it was the middle of the night or the middle of the day, being only eight years old or so. Those dreams horrified me, and I was certain I was going to die. So I told my mother, because that was how you solved every problem that was above your head back then.

The irony is, of course, that telling my mother was exactly what I needed to do to solve the problem. After her funeral I moved to live with my father and I never saw that strange, tall man again. Problem solved.

And I grew up. I went to school, and I wrote terrible, angsty poetry about girls I had no chance with, whilst ignoring girls who had no chance with me who were probably writing terrible, angsty poetry about how much of a jackass I was. I got a job at a games store, which I had vague plans to one day run, and earned slightly more money than I needed to survive, which was nice.

And then He came back. I've seen the blogs - both real and fake - I know how it goes. I stumbled across a reference somewhere, and suddenly I knew that the time my mother had bought me was up. There was no fascination with the 'myth' or slow descent into madness. I just knew He was coming. I knew when I went to bed, and I still knew the next day when I woke up with a nosebleed and a migraine. I ate breakfast, I had a shower, I got dressed and I waited. I thought about running, I really did - but if He could simply walk out of my closet in the middle of the night while I slept, where was I supposed to run to? I thought about fighting, but how do you fight a creature from your dreams? So I waited.

And when He showed up I opened the door and let Him in. He did that thing where He Walks - took me with Him, too - right into my kitchen, just to let me know He didn't need me to open the door and I think that was about when my nosebleed came back and I pissed my pants in fear.

And then as He moved closer and started to unravel Himself that part of my brain that used to be a lizard had an idea, because through all the terror, pain and revulsion all I wanted to do was live and I guess I pretty much would've done anything to survive at that point. So I asked Him for a job. I think I said something like "Give me a job I can do something useful you don't have to kill me you have to need people for something I've seen MarbleHornets I can help please don't kill me oh god its not real please don't kill me I can still help please don't kill me", except there weren't really spaces between the words and I was still peeing my pants for about the first half of it.

And then He laughed. I sweartofuckingBran, He laughed at me. It was this low, quiet chuckle with a hundred thousand echoes of children laughing with him in the background and for a moment my mind snapped and I was just an animal hiding from a predator, just a lizard scrambling backwards as the shadow of a hawk flitted over me, just a mouse scrambling frantically away from the jaws of a cat so much faster and stronger than it. It was horrifying and revolting and wrong.

And then He folded himself back up until He was just a faceless man in a suit and the embodiment of everything wrong with the world, not a lovecraftian horror made out of trees and hate and spiders and claws and the screams of a thousand lonely children that crawls under the world and gnaws at your dreams while you sleep.

And that was it.

Once He was all horrifyingly humanesque again, He just left. Turned around and walked away. I don't know what possessed me to do it beyond a horrible certainty that if I let Him out of my sight He'd start acting like He normally does again, but I scrambled after Him as He walked to my front door, just like any other visitor would when it was time to leave.

He was messing with me, I'm sure, because we all know He doesn't walk around like a normal person or need to open a door to get past it but once He got there, it swung open of its own accord and He just strode through and kept on walking. I was too terrified and too stunned to keep on following Him now He was out of my house, but I could still see Him walking down the street - a lucky fluke of living at the end of a cul-de-sac, I suppose. I could feel His presence retreating as He got further and further away, like He wanted me to know He was really leaving.

So I closed the door, had a shower, got some clean jeans off of my 'floordrobe' in my bedroom, mopped the kitchen floor and ate lunch. Two days later, I returned home from a little shopping trip to find a car parked out the front of my house and a teen-aged girl I'd never met leaning on the bonnet. I didn't have to ask why she was there, but I did. I wasn't surprised when she told me that He had sent her, nor was I surprised at the way she seemed to glow with some sick religious rapture when she talked about Him. She stunk like she hadn't showered in days and had been rolling in mud for good measure, so I let her in and let her use my shower.

And that was how I started taking care of the Taken, His 'children'.