So.

Guess I'm not as dead as I'm supposed to be.

That Red-Fuck screwed up everything. EVERYTHING. I'm not going to pretend that Sam was the world's greatest person. I'm not going to try to make any one of you guys forget just what kind of horrors Sam was capable of. In fact, I DON'T want you to forget that... because I'm going to tell you that the person I married WAS one of the purest person on this whole rotten planet, and I want you to SEE the contrast. I want you to see how much the person I love most gave up, how much it FUCKING CHANGED... just to save our family. Just to try and make SOME kind of difference, even if it was throwing itself into the godforsaken snake pit. Even if its job became murder and torture...

But that wasn't enough, was it?

If it had ended there, I probably would have been able to accept it. Move on. Leave well enough alone and just... keep the memories safe. Cause that was the only thing I COULD have kept safe by the time I found out what happened.

But this...?

THIS??

What Red-FUCK did to Sam goes beyond ANYTHING I could ever leave behind. Ever just walk away from and pretend everything was okie-day. Sam was OBLITERATED by that son of a bitch. Goddamn TELLER or whoever he wants to pretend he is or isn't... he ruined Sam. He tore out the goddamn CORE of who Sam was and SKINNED it while it watched, bound and gagged. Sam broke. Then shattered. Then was grounded down into a dust that didn't even resemble my Sam anymore.

My Sam...

My Sam... who thought I'd hate it for what it had become over the years. That clawed nightmare known as "Nightscream".

My Sam... who was probably convinced I hated it since I was STUPID enough to take out my panic, fear, and frustration at being hunted by Slender Man...  by throwing blame at it. By accusing Sam of bringing that THING home to Leo and me. Bringing... that entire horror show home and bringing our lives to a screeching halt before Leo's had even really BEGUN. It still sickens me... that the last time Sam and I exchanged words, we were fighting. Least, I was. Sam was mostly quiet. I guess it was trying to let me have my screaming rant... and then Sam touched me. Trying to COMFORT me.

And what did I do?

I stung my hand across Sam's face.

I HIT Sam.

And that's something I will NEVER forgive myself for. That I HATE myself for. I always said that Sam was always too good for me... and that's when I proved it.


After that... I woke up in the hospital after the accident. Alone.

No goodbye. No note. No nothing.

Just gone.

Leaving me with Leo and NO goddamn clue what was going on.

For a while... yeah, I was mad as hell at Sam. And at myself. Then at Sam again. So I did the only thing I thought I COULD do... which turned out to be the fastest route to a rubber room that someone could ever fucking take. I actually thought I could MAKE them listen. That, no matter how far fetched my story was with monsters and entire FORESTS of Black Leaves that BLED the further you went into it... I thought I could MAKE them listen to me.

After all, they were my colleagues. My team. We'd all been through thick and thin together and had KEPT IT together. Practically family, right? Of course. Practically.

Apparently, its never a good idea to start screaming and ranting about faceless monsters and mutated newborns. No matter how much you think you KNOW who you're talking to. Cause let me tell you something... you'll be making perfect sense until you start seeing THAT look. That stupid, fuck-face, condescending expression. And, when you see it. And realize it. You suddenly stop making sense. Cause you're panicking right? Trying to prove against what they've actually decided was fact. A 'shame', but a fact.

I wasn't crazy.

I WASN'T.

But that didn't stop them from locking me up like one. Drugging me and tying me down to a fucking MATTRESS as if I was a danger to myself or others. That didn't stop them from using those SICKENINGLY soft voices, like I was a damn child. That didn't stop them from making me STARE at those padded walls and wear those stupid gowns and talk to Doctors of this school and that school. All with that same. Fucking. Expression.


At that point... I became Ex-Special Agent Alex Prescott, FBI.


Leo was placed in Foster Care.

And that's how it 'Ended'.

Sam was dissected and tortured and stabbed and shot and poisoned and plagued and God only KNOWS what the fuck else...

Leo ran out onto the road while playing and was hit and killed by a damn CAR.

All while I stared at ink blots and had to listen to fucknut psychiatrists or psychologists or whatever they were psycho-analyzing me and my account of this "Faceless Monster." God, they LOVED discussing him!! It was like COCAINE for them. Once they started talking about this thing I'd "created" to explain my "mental breakdown", they never goddamn STOPPED. They loved digging into the SYMBOLISM behind it... and even going so far with ONE bright spark of a doc to suggest that I had CREATED the "Tall, Suited Man" to have something to blame since I had "OBVIOUSLY ATTACKED MY SPOUSE".

Wanted to explain why Sam took off. The good doc claimed it was fear.

I wanted to KILL the son of a bitch.

I tried to.

Kinda a hard thing to pull off in a mental institution.

Those places... get to you, after a while. If you're sane going in, you'll be questioning yourself in no time flat. And I did question myself. Over and over and over again. Even going so far  as to go on a screaming rant in the middle of the night because I WANTED the Slender Man to manifest himself. I wanted to SEE that thing again, only so I could KNOW that what was in my head actually DID happen and we WERE chased by that Thing. I was scared. And alone. And I just wanted something or someone to PROVE I wasn't insane...

He never showed up.

To this day, I haven't seen Him since the hospital.

So, eventually, I just... started going along with it. Started accepting what the docs were telling me. That I had a mental break. That Sam fled for safety sake and was probably starting over somewhere with a new life, away from me. I took my medication. I went through the sessions. I did the group share shit.

Three years went by of that garbage.

And they decided I was sane enough to be let out. Tentatively.


I bolted after a week.

No more sessions. No more drugs. No more fucking DOCTORS.

I had to find Sam.

I started digging. And digging. And digging. And DIGGING. Turning up absolutely ZILCH, which, really, is weird all on its own. So I basically decided "fuck it". I tracked down an old friend of mine... and gave a knock at the door. In the pouring goddamn rain of course. It's DOWN-POURING and I turn up on the front step of someone who I hadn't seen in three years - soaked to the bone in a jacket that wasn't even waterproof.

His face was pretty damn priceless when he saw me. But. Gotta give the old man credit. He let me in. He even dug out some old clothes that I could change into and threw a blanket at me while the coffee pot was getting going. He told me that he'd heard that I'd booked it out of town the second they let me out of the asylum. Even made the news for a few days while they looked for me. I was kinda surprised about that. Not like I was some Big Fish or anything. But I just rationalized it as me being Ex-FBI made me somehow 'special'.

I asked if he was going to turn me over.

He just shrugged and said that I didn't look that nuts. Except for the fact I was out in the storm, anyway. In fact... he said that I never seemed nuts. Not to him. And not to several other people who had heard my rant in the office that day. The wrong people, who had too many things to keep covered up. People who didn't WANT an Agent running around yelling about Faceless Monsters. Who had to make the issue disappear. Pressure from above and all, once word trickled around.

He told me that I always did run my mouth too much for my own good.

He gave me some advice. Some things to look into.

He said I should be smart and leave it.

But he already knew I wasn't smart.

So... he told me about a site called Blogger. And how some of the people that are hunted by Slender Man document their stories/horror shows there. Post by post. He suggested that I should look through them. That they might give me a better idea of the kinda SCOPE this crap covered. That maybe, just maybe, one of them might mention something about someone named "Sam". That it was a long shot... but you never know. Because he could tell me one thing without a doubt... Sam did NOT relocate elsewhere. Sam left Leo behind, after all. It wouldn't have done that, if what the doctors had said was true. Not only that... but my friend told me it was odd for my Haunting to just suddenly stop like that. That it barely ever worked that way. And that he had heard rumors... that, sometimes, "The Slender Man" makes deals with people.

When he said that... my stomach turned over on itself.

I knew. I knew even WITHOUT knowing. Ever blog that I went through, I was fighting against myself. Wanting to find something and NOT wanting to find ANYTHING at the exact same time. And when I... finally did find a Proxy Blog written by a "Sam".... yeah. I was in tears with every single post, wanting to deny it... but I knew I'd found Sam.

My Sam.



And I was too late.



I don't give a shit to blabber on about the emotional roller coaster then WRECK that followed. All that matters is what I decided on the other side of it. And that something is this:

I don't give a fuck what it did.

I still love Sam.

I always will.

That's why I couldn't walk away then.


And that's how Cypher found me.






But I'm not getting into that tonight.