Fuck.

Shit.


Shit shit shit.




Shit shit fucking shit fuck.


You think I care, Skeptic? I think I care about you? You called me, remember? You said, "Hey, I have this great idea: let's go to war!" And I didn't fucking want to do it. But you convinced me. And now you bailed.


I understand why. I do. But you couldn't tell it to my face? You had to sneak out in the middle of the fucking night?


Fuck that shit. When it's my turn, when it's my time, I'm not going to go out to the desert someplace and go quietly. I'm going to the tallest building I can find and when he comes for me, I will run him straight off the roof.


That's how I'm going to die. How are you?

The Skeptic-On-Duty of a Decaying World

Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

It's time. It's time to tell the truth.

Peri has fallen asleep on the couch. She's been watching over me like a mother hen these past few weeks. I didn't realize just how much she cared about others until she cared about me. She cares more than she realizes. And yet, I write this in secret. Tom O'Bedlam is sitting in the corner, grinning at me like some sort of ghastly specter, but I know he will not wake her. Not when I leave.

So much has happened this past week. This past month. So many have died. And past villains seem to have returned. The pendulum of life has tipped and we seem to be entering a time when everything goes wrong. When we are powerless and trapped.

And I am not blameless. My hands are not bloodless.

I have never revealed where the name of "Skeptic" came from. It was a nickname, given to me by the Panopticon. Back when they were just a think tank. Back when I worked for them.

I was there, when we were hired to study the runners and the proxies. The others, upon hearing about the Slender Man, scoffed in disbelief. I, on the other hand, knew the truth. I tried to convince them of it, but they called me "Skeptic," a reversal of my role.

And then they saw him and they despaired. And I did something foolish. I did something stupid. I proposed the idea of a counter-meme.

They took to it instantly. How else to fight a meme-complex but with a counter-meme? I knew the truth, but I wanted to keep them sane. I didn't realize how bad I was making things. Memes were proposed and discarded. I tried to minimize the damage, but already it was spinning out of my control.

My last proposal was an attempt to get them to fight the Slender Man. To get them to war with him.

The invincible summer. That was my counter-meme. That was my idea.

They rejected it and replaced it with their own. With the "best of all possible worlds." With Brazil and Brave New World and 1984.

I am sorry, Adam Krug. I am sorry, Proxiehunter. I am sorry for all future victims of my mistakes.

And now? Now I have somehow attracted the attention of the Plague Doctor. The Beak Doctor, the spreader of disease, and his servants are after me. And if I stay here, I know Peri will continue to care and protect me. And for that, she will suffer at his hands. And I cannot abide that.

So I am running. I'm running away and leaving this blog for Peri and Tom to continue. I'm going to go where the damage from my death will be minimal. Where the Slender Man or the Plague Doctor can take me without anyone else dying by my side. Because I am going to die. The only questions are where and when.

I am leaving the war for you to fight. Even if it is futile, you must not give up. You must push the rock up the hill, even knowing that it will fall. When we push the rock, knowing that it is futile and still pushing, that is when we know we are human.

There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn. 

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning.

Signing out for the last time,


Jack "The Skeptic" Castel

So yeah.

He's doing better. More lucid now. His wound is at least healing fine. He's going to have a heck of a scar, but don't we all?


So, yeah, about the Plague Doctor. Don't get me wrong, the thing we're running from, the thing we're fighting against is the Slender Man. But you can't help but notice other things while running. It doesn't take a genius to realize that if the Slender Man exists, then other things could exist, too.


Of course, it helps when they all have servants and things with symbols and whatnot. This is the Plague Doctor's symbol - aptly named "the Stick and the Serpent." His servants are Oathbreakers. Like their boss, they spread corruption and disease and what the fuck they would want with Skeptic, I have no idea.


Just another mystery, I guess.

Out of the hospital

We've left the hospital. It wasn't safe there.


Skeptic hadn't really been lucid since he woke up. The doctors kept mentioning "possible" brain damage. Except he was stabbed, not hit on the head. But I wasn't sure. I mean, he could have fallen down and hit his head before we got there. I didn't want to take him out of the hospital before he was healed just because I was paranoid.


But yesterday, he looked more lucid, so I gave him the laptop to see what he would write. He opened up a notepad and started writing:

oak beater 

oak beaker 

oat beater 

oat beaker

I thought he was back to gibberish, but then I looked again and saw it. I saw what he was trying to tell me:


Oath breaker.


He must have seen the Stick and the Serpent on one of the doctors or nurses. I don't know what the fuck the Plague Doctor wants with him, but I got him out of there as fast as I could.


I let Tom O'Bedlam handle all the paperwork.

He was on the roof.

The fucking roof.


Here, let me just lay out what happened: Skeptic, a thirty-year-old man with a chest wound that was still healing, got out of his hospital bed and walked up five flights of stairs to the roof. Nobody saw him do this. None of the nurses or orderlies I talked to saw him leave or walking up the stairs. He shouldn't even have been able to walk up those stairs -- the doctor says he should barely be able to stand.


And yet I found him on the roof looking over the side. For a moment, I was scared that he was going to jump. Then he turned and looked at me and said, "Sum." I rushed over and pulled him away from the edge, all the while he was saying, "Sum. Mer. Sum. Mer."


By the time I had gotten him back to bed (and yelled out the nurses and orderlies for letting him leave), he was chanting, "In. Vince. Able. Sum. Mer."


Someone, this phrase has gotten stuck on a loop in his mind. It's from a quote by Albert Camus - you can read the whole thing here. Needless to say, he loves the quote for some stupid reason. But I have no idea why it's looping through his head.


I'm just glad he's back in bed.


(Except how did he leave without anyone seeing? Fuck.)

He's gone.

I went into his hospital room and he wasn't there. Just a bed of crumpled sheets. Fuck.


Nobody saw him leave. Nobody.


Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.

Sorry.

I'm sorry about that last post. Skeptic woke up, but he wasn't talking, so I thought maybe he could write. But I guess he's still not coherent.


Or maybe he is coherent and he's just describing dreams of the past. Fuck if I know.


I need another cigarette.

find the children find them find the ghost of man find his slender fingers beckoning me inviting me to go for a walk in the woods a nice walk in the woods at night and what could go wrong and follow the man without a face and find the children and see their faces

oh GOD their FACES i can SEE their FACES

their SKIN STRETCHED out on those TREE TRUNKS

the BRANCHES going through their EYES

why WHY why WHY did he do that

no WHYS

no GOOD

just RUN

RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN

Update

They wouldn't allow me to smoke indoors, so I'm sitting outside on one of those crappy plastic tables, typing with one hand and smoking with the other.


Skeptic's been sleeping this past weekend. He woke up briefly yesterday - I thought he was going to shout "April Fools!" at us - but then fell back asleep again. That's the only reason I know he isn't in a coma. They said he was lucky that the blade was so short - and even now, he still has to stay in the hospital for the next I-don't-know-how-long.


Also, in other "I-don't-know-how-long" news, I don't know how long I can keep this ruse of being his sister up. They've already asked for his insurance, but so far I've stalled them. Sure, I can tell them we don't have any insurance, but I don't know if they'll just turf him to the curb when he wakes up. If he wakes up.


Shit, Tom O'Bedlam is climbing a fucking tree. I better get him down before he breaks his fucking neck and we have another person in the hospital.