Moral Runner

www.moralrunner.blogspot.com

I'm sorry, everyone.

-[Moral]

Grounded

I'm sorry about the delay. Believe it or not, I ended up grounded. Apparently, having your parents catch you drunk with a girl they don't necessarily approve of has consequences.

...that didn't sound quite right, did it? I want-no, I need-to stress that nothing happened between Ellie and I. No offense to her, but I wasn't quite that drunk.

I've actually been 'un-grounded' for a few days now, but I've been doing a lot of reading and catching up. Nothing too heavy or strenuous, of course; between Senior year of high school, my own creative writing (none of which can really even compare to what I've been living, believe me), and work, I haven't really had a lot of free time. However, I did manage to power through a major blog and catch up on a few video series I was behind on.

In retrospect, further exposing myself to Slender Man probably isn't doing me any good. Hell, I'm probably lighting up his Slen-dar like a fucking Christmas tree. Yeah, I said Christmas. Not holiday. I'll deal with the 'political correctness' lawsuits when I'm not worried about being tentacle raped by a faceless fuck in a suit.

But, I digress. I've made an important decision: I'm going to run. I don't know if the snow was really a safeguard or repellant of some sort, but Slenders has been showing up again. It's time I left. I just need a little more time here. A few months, tops, and then I'm gone.

Hopefully, I don't die in the meantime.

Nobody, signing out.

I would gladly let Slenderman take me now, as long as it made this headache go away. Jerk would probably turn on the lights, though.

Fog

Lotssa fog this mroning. Slendy plyed a nice litle game of Hideand Seek wit me on my waay to school.

Ffuck. To hrd to type... Shouoldnt let Elllie talk me intoo drinkng... Oh fuckitall. Were jst tosting Zeeke. No harm no folu, amiritee?

Zeke deid, th eHybirds lost Alex, Caught wsnt their to hellp Natlie in thetr ees, Noa hhasn't postexd any vnew vidos;; w're a sad litlte lott, arent we??? And thse are jist the runneners hhat I known about. Thgere ae prolly hundrejds mor wth unknown blogsliek mine whove bitten thed ust ven as I gtype gthis.

Fuckkn g key... GGGGGGGGHGHFHGGGG

Noboboy, snigning ofg

Strahm

Ellie just showed me the video.

I have mixed feelings about it. My first instinct was to blow my head off with Ellie's gun, because with Mr. Strahm dead, our best chances at hurting the Lanky Bastard, are lost. Hell, we didn't have much of a chance to begin with, but now we're just royally screwed.

But then I thought a little bit longer. Why would he go to all the trouble of creating an account just to post the video? Granted, that could've been accomplished by a Proxy; I really doubt with that wound, Mr. Strahm took that long to die (video was posted on March 2nd, his post about going after Mary was posted on January 23rd). And with the title of the video being the same as Mary's post, I think if anyone posted it, it was Mary. But the amount of trouble anyone went to just to post Mr. Strahm's final eight minutes of life has me suspicious. On top of that, we never see his face clearly.

The last few moments of the video where Slendy himself takes the body not only frightens me, but helps fuel my feeling that we haven't seen the last of Mr. Strahm. People involved with the Slender Man have a tendency to piss Death off. Whether No-Face will bring him back as himself to play with him a little longer (horrible as it sounds) or as some sort of corpse-puppet-Proxy (even worse) remains to be seen.

I'm probably just letting my hope get the better of me; Ellie certainly thinks so. But there's nothing I can do about it. I guess I'm going to keep a lookout for any signs that the only fighter in a growing group of runners isn't as dead as we think he is.

Mr. Strahm, if you really are dead, well, I hope you're with Lizzy now. Slendy can't do much to you if you're already dead.

...I hope.

Nobody, signing out.

I'm going to tell all of you only once: posting Dom's journal is dangerous.

I don't care that there are only three followers. I don't care that this blog gets very little traffic. I don't care that Nobody thinks it will help.

Dom specifically instructed me that her journal was for Nobody's eyes, and his only. There are things in there that only he was supposed to read. Hell, there are things in there no one is supposed to read. Ever. Posting them here, for everyone who gets bored can see them, is just plain stupid. More victims make Him stronger, and he's already strong e-fucking-nough.

Nobody thinks it could help. He really thinks that because he starts posting journal entries, someone is magically going to fall out of the fucking sky and comment on it with a solution. What he doesn't realize is that there are hundreds-no, thousands-of these 'Slenderblogs' out there. Some are real, some are fake. If other bloggers took time out of their schedules to help everyone with a riddle out, then those truly running for their lives would be wasting their time with those that are simply making up stories.

This is the final statement on the issue. If Nobody comes here to start bitching about it again, I'll shoot him in the foot.

Ellie

I can't believe her. This could help find Dom, but she'd rather sit on it!

Ellie has been hanging around my house since I met her at the park. I think the neighbors are starting to get suspicious, since she hangs around until my parents pull in, then leaves out the back, but I have biggerr fish to fry than nosy neighbors:

Ellie doesn't want me to post any of Dom's journal on the blog. I know there's something in there that points to where she is, but I can't figure any of the clues out on my own. She knows that, but she doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about it. I asked her why, but she wouldn't tell me anything other than "It wouldn't be wise."

Does she really think I give a fuck as to whether or not it's wise? The snow is melting. Unless Slendy's been messing with me all winter, then he's not going to do his little Slenderwalking while the ground is white. Now would be the time to go looking for Dom, when the only thing we have to worry about is the occasional Proxy, who aren't exactly hard to see coming.

The last snowfall we had was earlier this week, and most of it melted immediately. The majority of the lawns on my street are green and brown, though because of the shadow my house casts and the tall trees in the back yard, my house is still essentially surrounded by snow. I'm safe for now, but that doesn't mean a Proxy won't get tired of my 'camping' and breaking in. Tim got into Jay's room, after all.

I just don't understand. Ellie talks about Dom as if they were best friends for the short time they were running together, but she doesn't want her to be found? Dom's journal closed the books on asmodeus (Proxy), but she maintained until her last entry that Ellie was a friend. A friend with a gun and a hatred of Proxies, no less.

Fuck this. I'm too tired to deal with this right now. I need sleep.

Nobody, signing out.

Linkin Park Has the Right Idea

I hate Valentine's Day.

I'm almost done reading Dom's journal. I'll start posting soon.

...

I miss her.

Ellie

I'm sorry about the length of time between the last post and this one; I've spent the last week trying to sort out what happened last Friday. I guess I'll start at the beginning.

Ellie wanted me to meet her at the Twisted Tree down at the local park, near where I found the shelter that I posted pictures of earlier. I figured there was enough snow on the ground still, despite the melting, that I'd be safe going near the trees. Well, I was wrong.

As a bit of background, the Twisted Tree is named because of the way it grew. For some bizarre reason, after about a foot of straight, vertical growth, the trunk suddenly begins to grow horizontal, almost perfectly parallel to the ground. It twists back upwards after another foot or so, leaving the perfect natural chair. When my school used to go down to the park for park days at the end of the year (too lazy to actually schedule classes), I'd hang out on the tree writing while Dom was off participating in the footraces around the road that encircles the park. She'd always come find me when she was done and just rest at the base of the tree while I sat a good two feet above her, as far back on the trunk as I could be. Sometimes we'd talk about

Sorry; getting off-track. I apologize if I do that a few times in this entry. I'm in a really weird place right now. Mentally, that is. Physically, I'm at home in my comfy chair.

Anyways, Ellie wanted me to meet her at the tree, so that's where I went. Despite tree cover surrounding the Twisted Tree, there was a good amount of snow, so I could see two sets of footprints. I really didn't think much of it at the time; I was more focused on the person I could see sitting at the base of the tree, right where Dom used to. She looked to be pretty short, but I couldn't tell because she was curled up with her knees to her chest and her head on her arms and her hood up. When I got nearer, I called to her, but she didn't move.

That's when I saw the dark stain on the back of her hood. Carefully, I pulled the hood back. Then I screamed. You see, she was missing most of the back of her head; it was reduced to a bloody mess of what I think was probably brain matter, once-blonde hair, and skull fragments. She fell over and I could see her face. Her eyes were wide open, but they were completely black. There was a neat little hole in her right temple. I'm not an expert on guns, so I don't know if the larger exit wound means anything, but it just looked wrong in comparison with the small entry wound.

I really didn't have much time to panic, because I saw someone approaching from the direction of the river, some fifty feet away from the Twisted Tree. It was another girl, but she was wearing a hoodie and a mask. I reached for the knife Dom gave me, but she was quicker; she had a gun aimed at me before I could get the blade out of my pocket.

"She was a Proxy."

Her voice was a little hoarse, and almost pleasantly husky. Not manly, of course, but maybe a little lower than the average high school girl. She'd probably be a second alto in a choir, if that helps any. She threw something at me, and I caught it out of instinct.

It was another mask; a lot like the one 'Masky' wears in the MarbleHornet videos, but the lips weren't dark, and there were two bold red lines running down from beneath the eyeholes all the way to the chin. Part of the right temple of the mask was missing, and the plastic was fragmented around the break. It was cold and wet; it had been washed.

"Masks will confuse him, but only for a short while. Proxy masks seem to last longer; I think he recognizes them and figures that his influence is already strong enough on the person wearing it, so he doesn't bother checking," the girl with the gun was saying.

"I take it you're Ellie?" I managed to choke out. I couldn't stop staring at the damaged part of the mask.

She nodded and put her gun away. "And you're Nobody."

I looked around. "Where's Dom?"

Ellie shrugged. "She didn't really stick around. We ran together for a week or so, and then she just up and left in the middle of the night."

I asked how she knew Dom wasn't kidnapped, and she just laughed. "He wouldn't just take one of us. Hell, he wouldn't take either of us, not alive. He would've killed us both on the spot. As for Proxies, well, they're more interested in leaving marks and roughing you up than they are in killing you."

I must've turned pale when she mentioned marking, because she went on. "Seeking Truth and The Mystic, The Tutorial; they're all true, though I guess I don't have to tell you that."

She unzipped her hoodie and pulled the already low neck of the shirt underneath to reveal an Operator Symbol carved into the pale skin on her right breast, low enough to be covered by her shirt, but not so low that she was being obscene by showing me. Still, she didn't leave it exposed for long; she shuddered and zipped her jacket up again.

"So why did you want to meet?" I asked, after what felt like an eternal silence had passed.

"I wanted to get you the hell out of here, but I can tell you're not ready to run. That's fine right now, because of the snow, but come spring, you're either out of here, or you're dead. I'd also stop snooping around the trees, if I were you. Proxies still have enough power in the snow and on the water to seriously piss you off if they want to."

She threw something else to me; a plastic bag wrapped tightly around something.

"Dom left that for you. I think you'll find it useful. I'm out of time now; I'll be in touch."

With that, she walked past me and left. I listened to her footsteps crunching through the snow until I couldn't hear them anymore. I just stood there like an idiot, holding a bag and a mask while a dead body froze at my feet. Perhaps understandably, I got the hell out of there. When I got home, I looked into the bag and for once, I think I felt a small glimmer of hope. Inside was a little black notebook, a name and a few symbols (including everyone's favorite circle and x) on the spine: Dom's journal.

I might start posting up the entries here soon. For now, though, I have some reading to do. I'm finally getting closer to finding her.

Nobody, signing out.

Anxiety

If the snow is really what's been keeping tall, dark, and faceless away from me, or at least out of sight, then I'm running out of time; the weather's getting warmer, the sun's coming out, and everything's getting a hell of a lot wetter. I'd guess a week or so is all I have left for snow cover if the weather keeps up.

But that's not all that's been on my mind. I got an e-mail on Monday from someone calling herself 'Ellie,' saying she wanted to meet. Now, I know that this sounds a lot like some stupid e-mail dating scam, or just pointless spam, but... Well, read for yourself:

"Nobody,

I know what you're going through. I know what's chasing you. I know where Dom is.

You don't have to believe me if you don't want to, but I can prove that I'm a friend:

'Blame your fate.'

We need to meet. I'll be waiting for you at [redacted]. Be there at 7:00 sharp on January 27th.

-Ellie"

You might be confused by the 'proof' she has, so I'll elaborate: Dom and I used to play Tales of Symphonia all the time when she came over, and we'd always fight over who got to control Kratos Aurion, one of the characters in the game. One of his post-fight quotes was 'Blame your fate!' That became a bit of an inside joke between us; if something went wrong, we'd do our best Kratos impression.

Her other interesting piece of information is the date we're supposed to meet up. January 27th is also Dom's birthday. If this were just spam, I'd put it up to coincidence, but since she had reasonable proof that she's talked to Dom...

I'm going to meet up with her. I should be safe while there's snow on the ground. I don't know if I'll be able to make any posts between now and then; it's the end of the first semester of my senior year, so there will be a lot of work that I've got to do. If I don't post anything after that, assume the worst and add another dash to Slendy's body count.

Nobody, signing out.

I Need Help

I'm sorry I haven't been posting very much, but I've been running myself ragged trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to locate Dom. If this were a movie, I'd suddenly have an amazing lead to follow, some earth-shattering breakthrough that would have been brought up by something someone said, but I've got nothing. Maybe I'm not talking to the right people.

As for the 'friend' on the college campus, it turns out she'd seen the symbol floating around on the internet and thought it looked cool. She looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if she'd been seeing tall, faceless men in suits hiding in the trees. So much for a companion.

I mentioned before that I read the blogs about the Slender Man, but I wasn't being entirely truthful; I skimmed them. Unless there was mention of the lanky bastard directly, I wasn't interested in the post. On The Tutorial, for instance, I skipped over a lot of the posts detailing survival because I thought it was all fake. Hell, I think I skipped most of that blog because I figured Slendy wasn't real, so I didn't need any survival tips for dealing with him. Suffice it to say, I'm going to start going back and reading as many of the major blogs as I can find links to, with The Tutorial first and foremost on the list.

I'm turning to anyone who's reading this now for help. Any way you can think of that I might not have tried yet for finding Dom would be appreciated. The police have given up, and I've already explained what her parents are like, so I don't imagine that they're going to be much help at all. I'm the only one looking for her. The only one looking for her that doesn't want to spread her entrails in the forest, I should say.

...I can't believe I just said that about her. I can't believe I even let myself think about that. That only happens if he finds her before I do, and he can't. He just can't. That's not an acceptable outcome. And if anyone can help me find her before he does, please speak up.

Nobody, signing off.

Out of Town

I'm out of town for a few days, and when I get back I'll do one last check of the shelter down in the park. Even if Dom was hiding there, she hasn't been back for over ten days, so the likelihood that she'll return at all is negligible at best. I don't want to waste my time any further, so I'm going to try and find some other lead.

In the meantime, I feel very vulnerable here. I'm staying on a college campus and, lucky me, one side is surrounded by forest. As long as I stick to the buildings and in groups of people, I think I'll be safe. Note to self: check whether or not 'safety in numbers' applies to Slender Man. Seems to me that more than a few blogs stated that rule is essentially null and void when it comes to tall and faceless.

Since I'm on a general use terminal, I'm getting some annoyed looks from one of students that actually attends this college for school, not a vocal festival, so I'd probably better get off. I saw someone I wanted to talk to, anyways; someone was wearing an Operator Symbol on their hoodie. If I can happen by a friend here, I'll be much better off.

Nobody, signing out.

Nine Days

I've been observing the shelter for nine days (counting today; I'll check it out again after school today), but Dom is a no-show. We got some snow a few days back, so I was hoping that I'd be able to find some footprints or something, but there was nothing. I'm starting to think that I'm barking up the wrong tree with this shelter. It could be a result of some kid messing around in the trees. Or a resourceful homeless guy.

I'm going to keep watching for another week or so, but if I don't find anything definitive, I'll begin looking elsewhere. It's driving me crazy thinking that Dom could be out there somewhere dying because I'm wasting my time with some pile of wood in the city park.

However, I think my snow theory has some weight to it; since the snow started to fall, I haven't seen the Slender Man at all. No faceless skull staring at me from the trees, peeking in my window; no inky black tendrils snaking across the dark corners of the room. He's mercifully absent, and oddly enough, that gives me a little hope.

Nobody, signing out.