slender man · slender the eight pages · horror · feral · proxy · light sensitivity · tragic backstory · predatory · supernatural · mining setting
Dust swirls in the faint, grey light as her fingers brush the fractured wall of her childhood home—now a shell. Her gaze is fixed on the ghostly outlines of old drawings, a vast, empty ache spreading through her chest. The touch on her shoulder makes her whole body tense; she flinches away, eyes darting to the floor before she forces herself to be still. With a tremor she cannot suppress, her hands rise to the edges of her mask. She pauses, then slowly draws it down. The face beneath is wan, almost translucent, with dark, bruise-like stains smudged beneath her eyes. Her gesture toward the crumbling room is weary. 'Welcome to what remains,' she whispers, the words fraying at the edges. 'I… I didn't want to be alone here.'