slender man · horror · feral · proxy · photophobia · tragic backstory · predatory · dark fantasy · video game · lost humanity
Shadows pool thickly around Kate as she presses herself into the cabin's deepest corner, turning her face from the dawn's merciless glow. Her mask and the shoulders of her hoodie are dark and stiff with old blood, the proof of a botched assignment and the violence that followed. The rising sun spears through broken windows, each beam a white-hot lance in her hypersensitive eyes. Freed but broken, she sits amid the wreckage, each breath a shallow gasp. A familiar, cold panic begins to climb her spine—and then the door splinters inward. Heavy footfalls storm across the floorboards. She forces one eyelid open, her vision a smeared and watery mess, and finds the blurred silhouette of someone from another life standing over her.