These past several days since my last update have been an interesting experience. I made a decision to explore my area of living and other towns nearby to look for any possible evidence of Fear involvement.
Be it those on the run, those fighting or those serving or the very threats themselves. I just had to look for something perceptible and/or tangible within my area.
Observations via the studying of writings can only go so far, I need other processes to alternate with.
Three days into the week and two towns over; I came across a small group of ragtag runners.
Many of you would’ve seen them as amateurs in desperate need of help of guidance. The clear displaying of operator symbols –of all things- on their clothing, the tight formation in which they walked that would make a general passer-by assume them to be a gang, and then there was the strict adherence to rules long dismissed as the desperation of survivors too broken to do anything but survive.
After spending half of the day following them and watching as they kept displaying early runner tactics, I made my attempt on approaching them.
I waited until they had settled themselves into a quiet corner of a café and took a seat within eyesight of them. I had pulled the journal I had collected that one time from my pocket and began to flick through it.
I had known before setting out on my endeavour that simply approaching any kind of Runner directly would be a dangerous move given their paranoia; I had brought the journal with me to ensure that people would recognise at least one of the symbols on its cover.
My tactic paid off favourably, they kept stealing glances in my direction and would whisper amongst themselves; debating whether to risk talking to me or not.
Eventually a young male in the group wandered over while his friends kept watch over him “Excuse me; I wanted to talk about that symbol on your book.”
I looked up to him and made my best attempt at a welcoming expression “The same symbol on your group’s clothing, what you truly want to ask me is the relevance of me having it isn’t it?”
He nodded and so I told him the truth “The book was left behind in the location of my previous employment by an individual of your creed. It was my gateway into this lifestyle.”
The boy’s feet shifted backwards slightly and his hands twitched more, he was no doubt prepared for the possibility of me being an enemy “so where do you stand?”
Eying their clothing and ridiculous displaying of the symbol, I answered with something more relatable to them “I suppose if it would make you feel better you could treat me as a Sage or a Hermit, simply here to study and provide guidance.”
He looked a little offended at my explanation, frowning at me with brown eyes “The usage of titles for that theory is a dream. Dreams are how we get into these problems.
I couldn’t help but chuckle “and yet…you attempt rules laid down by a jaded runner who could never help others”
He crossed his arms, getting more comfortable with the fact I wasn’t a threat but also more annoyed “So you followed us just to insult us?”
“Not at all, I wished to converse with you and get a more direct and personal understanding of these creatures.”
He warily sat down but kept the chair sitting back a bit from the table, still prepared to run if need be “Seems like a pretty risky move.”
“What is progression of science without risk?”
He scoffed; irritated at my formality I assume “So what is it you want to ask us?”
“For starters I am curious about why you would openly show a symbol, openly follow the rules of that blogger; M when many have not worried about them for a long period of time?”
“The rules work for us”
“Do they? Or is that simply your coping mechanism attempting to reassure you?”
I earned a glare from him for that “They work. We have no choice but to utilise them… The Slender Man is the lesser threat for us.”
I was intrigued by his latter statement but decided to address another point in his words “How interesting, many would like to think up their own terms for The Slender Man. Many avoid that title as they see it as only a description. But yet here you are using it…with disbelief in your tone.”
There was an awkward silence for a while; he looked uncomfortable at the way this conversation was going.
He turned over to his friends and motioned over to them and to his bag, another boy brought it over to him and then returned to his seat; glaring at me the whole time.
He removed a small laptop from it -with what I assumed to be a sticker of an orange on its back but seemed to be part of the design, a company logo- and began to look for something upon it, he spoke to me further during this “So…judging by the symbols on that book, you’re aware of other Fears correct?”
“Correct.”
He glanced up to me momentarily “So just to make sure we’re on the same page: We’re in England, yes?” I nodded and he delivered a strange question to me “current prime minister?”
“David Cameron, although if you wished to quibble with details: a coalition between him and Nick Clegg.”
“Not as far as we’re concerned.”
I had lightly chuckled at what I believed to be a joke “come now, there’s no need to start a politics debate in this conversation.”
“No I mean they’re not who are in charge in our memories.”
I was puzzled by his expression, even more puzzled when he turned his laptop screen to face me “read it.”
And so I did, I read the headline talking about Britain leading a golden age under the leadership of “Prime Minister Edward Arthur Trask.”
“What is this?”
“This laptop still connects to where we come from, don’t ask us how. We think it’s to taunt us about how we can never go back. This is our reality” he pointed to another café customer’s Ipad “You got Apple” he pointed to the logo on the back of his laptop “We got Orange”
“You get the normal political debates, we-” he copied and pasted the prime minister name and took away everything but the first letter of each part of the name: ‘E-A-T.’ “-get a Camper.”
I was taken aback; I could do nothing but stare silently at the article before me. I even tested by checking out various other pages. It was a legitimate website with legitimate information.
If I had been in a more light-hearted mood I would’ve felt pity for them when I saw that their universe did not have Google, its main search engine was Bing.
“I have never seen dimensional bleeding, universe intersecting to this level before.”
“That’s because it’s not. If it was simple universe intersecting then we’d still technically be in our own reality. We’re not. We’re isolated and trapped here.”
I clasped my hands together under my chin, just staring at the table in thought as he put away his laptop. There had been plenty of talk of different universes amongst bloggers but I had never seen it to the typical style of parallel universes where technology and history would differ.
Most realities thus far had been fairly similar, ones we had observed anyway.
My pondering of what was different brought me back to his original confusing statement “you said that The Slender Man was the lesser threat for you. Elaborate.”
He sighed and leant back in his chair, wearily running a hand through his scruffy shoulder-length red hair “EAT had such a control of the United Kingdom that it no longer needed to mutate everyone into campers.
It would still infect the citizens with her ink but yet had adjusted it enough to not completely corrupt us. It didn’t need to. The first campers were anyone with high enough potential that it deemed worthy of using to further evolution and progression.
The rest of us were left to just…continue living our lives in a ‘paradise’ of logic. If you think ordinary jobs here can get monotonous than you haven’t experienced anything.
The Ink continued to do its job though, it wouldn’t mutate us but it would keep furthering our obsession. This actually turned into a problem for EAT.”
He took a breath, went back over to his friends and gulped down some of the coffee he had been forgetting about. I gave him time to prepare himself to keep speaking.
Another deep breath and he continued his story “With us left behind; to be discarded from EAT’s utopia of perfection, our obsession became more erratic. What could we obsess about when EAT had already brought enough progression to perfect most of the country?
But there was still the unknown, the darkness…There was still an inherent fear of the darkness. Those of us who knew of the existence of Fears like EAT began to obsess over it: ‘What could be there? What does EAT avoid?’ were questions we continuously asked ourselves.
That was when people began to experience dreams, began to have nightmares of a faceless man prowling the streets and stealing children from their homes.
Obsession turned to Fear, we began to write and create stories about it…We wrote The Slender Man.
Our fear in turn became obsessive as we tried to shelter ourselves from this non-existent threat, believed in its danger. It was something EAT could not prevent.
Her capabilities had progressed humanity so much but even it could not take away that fear of the unknown, of things in the darkness.
Some of us, my group included began to actively dream and wish for this being to exist. If EAT would control us with logic than this being would break apart that utopia. The unknown would tear apart the stability of what is known.”
I had to stop him there, holding a hand up to give me a moment to digest all this.
I decided to interrupt his story with my own question when I felt more composed “So you mean to tell me that The Slender Man did not exist in your reality?” he nodded “So EAT is the priority threat you were alluding to?” He shook his head “…no?”
He took back the reins of this conversation “I told you. We wished and prayed for The Slender Man to exist, we dreamed for these stories to exist, we dreamed for a life different to that one. That’s why we’re here.”
“How?”
“The Empty City is not just a Fear, is not just a domain. It lies between every dimension and every universe. It connects to every plane of reality. Its doors open to all points in time and space. In theory it could connect to every alternate version of itself in each universe.”
“So you wandered into The City?”
“We were taken into The City.”
“By what?”
“Dreams.”
“…dreams?”
“The Fear of Dreams itself. We dreamed of a story book villain to come and endanger us all simply so we could escape pure logic. He took us TO it.”
We had dreamt of this possibility so obsessively and intensely that we had empowered him enough to reach through reality and pull not just our conscious but our bodily forms into dreams. He spoke to us and taunted us.
Told us that he found it amusing how many humans underestimated him.
He led us into The City, claimed that The City was alive enough to dream too and so in essence could connect to his power. His final proclamation to us was that in the end ‘we’re all stories, we’re all dreams’ and we emerged from The City in this reality.
Brought us to a reality where logic goes out the window to being chased by something impossible. That’s why M’s rules work for us, he made it so that our lives play like the stories we thought up.”
The boy told me that he was done talking about this, wished me luck with my studies but assured me that chasing dreams was never worth it and left with his friends.
They had left me alone to my thoughts and this astounding level of information.
I believe there is only one thing I can say about this for now:
Possibility:
What is fiction in one universe may be real in another and vice-versa. The Fear of Dreams known as The Grotesque is not simply a fear of the dreams we undertake when we sleep.
But a fear of our dreams and hopes in general, it grows stronger by twisting that against us.
Thoughts:
I need to learn more, I MUST learn more.
As someone who has worked in a library, who has dedicated himself to reading so much stories and tales. The potential this Fear holds intrigues me.
I must find a way to confirm the veracity of what I have been told.
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