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.