A Hollowed Proxy

Fucking Jamaican bastard won't leave me the fuck alone.

Guess I should start from where I left off...

Uh yeah, I was kind of around, found myself in a self-perpetuated loop, some people would call it "going through the motions" which is accurate I guess.

I don't know, I'd just be wandering around the city literally in a circle, my day would start off under a bridge where I tended to sleep, waking up in the morning from my makeshift out of cardboard and newspapers bed. Then I'd go through the park to a homeless shelter where I'd get my breakfast, which should tell you about the state I'm in that the homeless are willing to take me for one of their own, I guess at this point I actually am one of them, only armed. Then I'd go to a library in town to use their computers, there I'd spend most of my time either watching something, or reading up on things, I'm assuming the reason I wasn't kicked out is because with so little people using computers in a library these days, I wasn't exactly bothering anyone. Then closer to night time I'd go past the homeless shelter to get myself some soup dinner, after which I'd go back to the park at night into one of it's many forested areas. In said forested area was an old, rusty gazebo inside of which my "drinking club" would congregate. I was actually accepted into said club when I saved one of it's members from a beat down by some dick-heads that were about my age, it was easy to do too, again because I'm armed. As thanks they brought me into the "drinking club" where a bunch of homeless guys would throw their remaining cash together, buy a bottle of booze and spend the night drinking their troubles away. Normally I would decline because that meant that I'd need to socialize, but the desire for a drink was far too great, luckily for me they seemed to quickly figure out that I wasn't one for conversations, so they would usually talk among themselves while passing the bottle around. After that I'd leave them to go under my bridge, rinse and repeat.

During those drunken walks in the night through the park, part of me was hoping that the tall bastard would show up and finally end it.

Until one night, as I was making my way back to my bridge I stumbled upon him, standing directly in my way with his weird cult robe flapping in the wind, Eko. I have not seen the annoying bastard for weeks since my last post and quite frankly I liked it that way, so of course he felt the need to intrude on my peaceful existence, the annoying cunt.

I was slightly shit-faced at the time, so my memory of our conversation here might be a bit foggy, but I'm pretty sure I told him to fuck off and leave me alone, definitely something among those lines. I don't think he got that message though because the next second I knew, I was being pelted in the face with a flurry of random pieces of paper which were flying directly from his shadowy silhouette, whilst his laugh echoed through the air. I remember clumsily swinging at the pieces of paper that were flying at me, blocking off my vision and slowly making me tip over with the strong wind that was carrying said pieces of paper. The before mentioned flailing caused me to suddenly hit a brick wall that just happened to come out of nowhere, causing me to fall backwards right on my ass. I rolled around on the ground for a good few minutes, just trying to let the pain pass on until I realize, the ground was made out of asphalt, which makes absolutely no sense for a park right?

Well that's because I was no longer at a park, the gold toothed bastard transported me somewhere, middle of fucking nowhere, on the roof of some kind of abandoned building. Finally getting up I tried to figure out exactly where I was, fat fucking chance, all around the abandoned building was a deep forest which was just great, for all I knew I could be in some kind of third world shit-hole. But before I could try and entertain that idea, my train of thought was interrupted by a sound that was coming from behind me, I turned around slowly to face the broken apart walls with empty window holes from which the sound was echoing from, this made me realize that whatever this building was supposed to be had two floors and I was standing on the roof of the first floor. I also realized that the wall I smacked into earlier must have been this same wall from within of which the sound was coming from.

I began to cautiously approach the wall and the sound began to slowly resemble the sound of sobbing, which wasn't creepy at all what-so-ever. As I was making my way towards the source of the sobbing this is where my second realization had struck me, I was no longer drunk, which on one hand is great because I didn't have to deal with the hangover in the morning, on the other it fucking bothers me greatly how this Eko can just randomly will my inebriation away.

But at that point there was no time to get pissed off about my drinking habits, I was in the middle of a forest with the sound of creepy sobs coming from beneath me. I slowly and quietly got close to one of the empty window holes and peeked inside. I was looking down upon a massive, derelict room with no flooring, there was a bare minimum of any kind of furniture inside: a table, few chairs, a dresser and a campfire that was out, above the campfire was a stick with a few, what looked like dead, cooked rats impaled on it. A room at the Hilton this was not.

As for the sobbing it was coming from a hooded figure that was facing one of the corners of said "room". This person's clothes were fairly regular, only thing that stood out about them were the various dirt stains, that's pretty much it. Suddenly the person's sobbing turned into pained screaming, revealing that this person was a man, he gripped his head and began to violently jerk around the room knocking shit over, revealing that he was also wearing what looked like a bat mask. I began to slowly take my gun out, just in case downgrade Batman had spotted me, when suddenly a hand grabbed my own hand with the gun and the other one covered my mouth after which then I heard a whisper in my ear: "He can't see us, keep looking."

Once I was let go of, I slowly turned my head to see that it was Eko, the creepy fuck, his fucking hands were cold as fuck by the way, I was about to give him a piece of my mind but I was once again interrupted by the violent grunting that had replaced the pained screaming from below, so I turned to face the shitty "Batcave" to see Batman on all fours just grunting, coughing and trying really hard to vomit something out. The result was black sludge just exploding out of his mouth, shit looked nasty and the constant gagging made me want to projectile vomit myself, but I couldn't do it because suddenly... I don't know, this will sound extremely cliche and dumb as fuck but the air changed, it felt heavier to a point that I could feel pressure in my chest, it felt like I was about to have a fucking heart attack. The pain was so great that I closed my eyes and tried to get the fuck away from the window, I was literally suffocating, but I wasn't allowed to move away because Eko and his cold fucking hands grabbed me by the back of my neck and forced me to stay in place, through pain I could hear him whispering in my ear again: "It's alright, most of you don't tend to experience this when Daygfoifsha (I have no fucking idea what this means, I'm going off by memory on how he said whatever this word was supposed to be) chooses to appear to you."

I sweat up a waterfall and I think I chipped one of my teeth, I was gritting my teeth THAT hard, it was fucking agony. Luckily it began to pass, I was able to gasp in air without pain, the feeling was so relieving that I instantly opened my eyes just to make sure I was indeed still alive. I should have kept them shut.

And then I saw it, the tall fucking bastard that was responsible for all the pain and suffering, standing over Batman who was now kneeling but also crying at the thing's feet. Any details of the tall fuck escaped me, I have no idea how people were able to determine that it was wearing a suit for all these years, it's body is so black that trying to look for any kind of details within it, like wrinkles on his pants or suit, is pointless, you can't see anything. It's body is just this black void, then again, maybe it's because I was looking at it from above and behind, for the first time ever I felt like I had managed to sneak up on the tall fucker and if what they say about him choosing to present himself differently to each person it reveals itself to is true, then maybe what I was seeing wasn't being influenced by it.

The man at the thing's feet didn't say anything, just quietly sobbed. That was until I saw four tendrils rip out from the tall fucker's back, each one wrapping around the poor bastard's individual limb, lifting him up in the air slowly, he just kept on sobbing. The tall fuck lifted its hand until it was on the same level as batman's head, then it's black as tar fingers began to extend, wrapping around the bat mask going underneath it without taking it off and I could see some kind of weird movement going on underneath the mask and the hood of the poor bastard that was strung up. His sobbing gradually changing to that of pained bursts of screams, I could very clearly hear the sound of flesh tearing and bones crunching, all while it's tendril fingers were creating various holes in the mask, breaking through it, like some kind of in-grown mold that was just breaking out from behind the wall. Eventually his mask completely broke off and I saw that his finger tendrils were no longer tendrils, it was just this black sludge all over the poor bastards face that was just moving around, slowly engulfing the front of his head, the grotesque noises of his face falling apart sounding louder than his muffled scream. At this point his entire body was shaking, no, more like convulsing, it was fucked up.

I could literally see his eye ball and bloody jaw bone leaking through the black ooze up into it's arm, eventually drowning within it. It was disturbing when he was screaming in pain as his face was being mushed up by the faceless fuck, it became eerie when his screaming and convulsions seized and all I could hear was this weird sound of thick liquid moving around, it was disgusting, but I couldn't look away.

Then it all stopped, no sound, no movement, all was static.

And then the sound of thick liquid moving resumed, this time it was faster and judging by the strung up body jerking backwards, as opposed to it being pulled forwards like before, I assume it was now moving towards the face, something I would confirm as soon as I saw what looked like a bloody ear, flowing through it's long arm, right towards the guy's engulfed face. Gradually the strung up body would begin breathing again and the faceless bastard would begin to retract his hand from the guy's face, the black sludge reducing to five long tendrils that were entering inside the guy's head through one of his eye holes, just underneath the eye; one of his nostrils; there were two tendrils that went deeper under the hood, probably to get in through his ears; and one through the mouth. It was really disgusting to see how said tendrils exited all of said orifice's, with that disgusting fleshy sound, all retracting to form a very thin hand.

ijustliterallywatchedamansfacegettakenapartonlyforittobeputbacktogetheragainWTF

The guy's face was intact, no blood, no sign of any forced entry, not a scratch, the only sign of any damage was the fact that he was unconscious, no fucking wonder- HOW THE FUCK WAS HE EVEN ALIVE!? Wild.

It seemed like the faceless fuck was done playing with it's toy and dropped the poor bastard right on the ground like a rag doll. Then I began feeling it again, a sudden wave of nausea hitting me, the painful feeling in my chest coming back, as soon as I began feeling it I instantly backed away from the window opening trying me best to outrun the ensuing pain and luckily for me Eko didn't restrain me this time, but continued to stand in place, looking at me, his gold toothed smile shining through as I was kneeling down on the ground from the massive migraine that was rummaging in my head, the sick fuck. A sudden urge to cough took me over and I began hacking up the nasty black shit as blood began to trickle out of my nose, I haven't had these in a long fucking time, I did not miss this.

Once I was done, I looked up at Eko and he just kept smiling away, very fucking funny dickhead. He gestured towards the window opening for me to yet again take a look, the pain seemed to have gone away so I got up and did just that, simply because I really had no other choice in the matter.

The faceless fuck was gone, just like that.

Inside the man was already on his feet, no sobbing, no grunting, nothing, just silence. He had made his way to the dresser, opening the top shelf and revealing that inside was an endless amount of various plastic, animal masks. He grabbed the one that looked like a snake and after putting it on, he opened the second shelf revealing a pile of different type of knives, a typical slasher paradise. Once he grabbed a knife of his choosing he immediately dashed out one of the empty window openings located on the first floor, taking off god knows where, to do fuck knows what.

After all of that fucky shit, I had only one question on my mind, why the fuck was I brought there to witness said fucky shit, a question I very non-politely directed at my kidnapper.

In response the douchebag just began stroking his goat beard with that weirdly amused smile creeping up on his face: "Does this not remind you of anything?"

"What in the fuck does that mean!?" I'll be honest, I was fucking worried that his vague bullshit was trying to imply that I myself went through the slender facial reconstruction service during my service, I mean if it did happen, I definitely had no memory of it which is nothing new with the tall fuck.

My train of thought was interrupted by Eko just plainly answering: "It doesn't matter, what does matter is that my duty has been fulfilled, yet again."

That got me boiling, this fucking guy was literally ping ponging me around as if I was a in the middle of a game of ping-pong, literally and quite frankly, it was pissing me off, so I burst out: "Duty? What fucking duty!? Motherfucker what do you want with me!? I just watched an unknown schmuck's face get pulled off and put back on again! What the fuck does that achieve and why fucking me!? Wha-" My line of questioning was once again cut off, I also paraphrased that last part, the original conversation included a lot of profanity in the direction of my kidnapper and as the age old meme goes:

   

 

                                                                fuck you
His response to my barrage of questions was another line of vague bullshit: "It's funny that you refer to him as 'unknown' when the both of you are so similar."

At this point my anger got the better of me, I was just so tired of having no answers and the fact that nobody was just fucking leaving me alone, first the bandaged retard offers me a partnership, then the undead fuck gives me a dip in the freezing lake and then there was this douche that just randomly abducts me to show me some fucked up shit for no reason. Ok maybe there was a reason, still fuck him.

So I snapped, turned around and swung at him, hoping to at least knock one of his golden teeth out of his fucking mouth. No such look, before my punch could even connect I was yet again being pelted by a bunch of pieces of paper, all suddenly coming out of nowhere and once again obscuring my vision, the powerful wind that was blowing them threw me off balance and I felt like I was falling through the window opening directly onto the first floor. The length of the fall definitely felt like that was the distance, I braced myself for impact hoping that I could just get off with a broken rib rather than a full blown spine injury. Yet, when I hit the ground, it didn't feel like I fell off a second floor, more like I fell off a jungle gym, when I opened my eyes, I was back at the park like nothing had happened.

I tried sleeping that night at my regular spot, but simply couldn't fall asleep, no idea why. So I stayed up, just looking at the lake under the bridge, not thinking about anything in particular. Fucking liar, you were thinking about her, her death anniversary was just a few weeks ago. Also Jeremy and how you ruined his life.

The next day I went about my regular routine... Well except the drinking part, didn't feel like it, I felt sick as is after what I had witnessed, I didn't want to puke out whatever food I managed to get inside of myself, so I played it safe.

Turns out that going through the motions whilst being sober is kind of sickening, so tonight right on Halloween, I'm going to fuck off out of this shitty town. I have no idea where I will go or what I will do, not even sure if I'll update again, I just kind of want to disappear. Fuck this shit man, it's all fucked, making this post out of the before mentioned library and fucking right off.

Good luck to all you fuckers out there, you're going to need it.

Runner John

 So yeah, been quiet for a while, still not sure why I'm bothering with updating, probably because latest posts started receiving comments from a new person, which shows that there's somebody else reading these apart from the regular lunatic shit-heads that I tend to attract for some reason, not quite sure why that's a motivator though.

Last time I published a post, I left off on me following the weirdo named Eko who I believe is an Archivist, for those of you who don't know those are essentially the Blind Man's servants and if you don't know what the Blind Man is, then you haven't really been paying attention for too long. Long story short, yet another weird monstrosity that can fuck with your memories, ranging from entirely removing them, to outright replacing them with some other false memories. That's the bare bones of it.

So why would one of his servants be interested in me at all? Originally I thought Eko was specifically around to monitor the Bandaged Idiot's activities, so why the fuck he would show up near me and seemingly guide me in some kind of direction is beyond me.

But guide is exactly what he did, he guided me right into an alleyway and then suddenly disappeared on me. Now considering the fact that I was wet from top to bottom because I was forced to take a dip in the local lake and now I was stranded in some shitty alley that stank like the devil's asshole, I figured a break and a hot meal was in order, the thinking was that once I was filled with warm food and coffee, I could go back to figuring out a way to kill myself.

Said warm meal and coffee I was going to get at a diner that was one of the many buildings facing the alley that I was in. So I went in there, not paying much attention to people looking at me and probably wondering why I was so dirty, went up to the counter and ordered myself a baguette, and coffee. As soon as I turned around to look for a seat to grab I saw hi yet again, Eko who appeared out of nowhere and was already sitting behind a table, waving me over. The second I spotted him it was very obvious that he was invisible to everybody else, otherwise a guy who is dressed as weirdly as he is would have definitely attracted all of the attention in the Diner.

Playing along with the facade that he wasn't there, so as to not risk getting the cops called on me I walked over to the table and took a seat.

"I agree, a break is in order." His Jamaican accent shining through like before.

I looked around to see if anyone had heard, just to make sure I wasn't going completely off the deep end, and the answer was not a single soul looked in our direction when he spoke, everyone went about their day as if there wasn't a cult looking weirdo sitting in their dinner, talking to a dirty, hobo-looking goth guy.

"Relax, an observer is never observed, they can only see and hear you."

Thinking of a way to respond to him without looking like I'm talking to myself, I let my hair down allowing it to cover up my face and proceeded to talk to him in a low voice, essentially asking him what the fuck he wanted from me.

"I want nothing from you Kyle [My Last Name], the question you should be asking is what do you want?" He answered without moving an inch.

Great, philosophy, retrospective philosophy no less, the worst kind. Not exactly sure why he was trying to lecture me about it and I highly doubt that he would explain if I asked, at the same time he also wouldn't leave me alone if I asked, so I didn't say anything, instead I just decided to ignore him and wait for my order, after that the plan was to have my meal and get the fuck out of there, back to what I was doing before.

Of course, as you might guess that plan got derailed when my meal had arrived on my table. When the waitress set my baguette and coffee down and began to walk away, my Jamaican guest decided to take his leave as well, at the time 'a welcome change of pace' I thought, but obviously nothing is ever so simple. As he was leaving, he bumped into this really tall guy causing the poor guy to fall, so in order to balance himself he leaned on my table and as a result spilled my, very hot, coffee all over my legs. To say that it burnt, would be an understatement, I literally had to freeze in place and not move a muscle so that the skin of my legs made as little contact with my pants as it possibly could.

Only after the man that tripped began to lean over me, to pick up the coffee cup did I begin to pay attention to who was in front of me. First thing that threw itself into my eyes was the fact how tall this guy was, I'm talking the distant cousin of Sasquatch here.

"Sorry there, bud." An apology came out of a mouth that was covered up by the ginger beard on his face. As he moved his hand back away from the coffee cup I noticed a ridiculous amount of scars covering his forearm peeking out at me from underneath the long sleeves of his green jacket.

You know how things that when thought about don't tend to make sense and yet still somehow manage to 'click' into my place, with there being no rhyme or reason for it? This is what happened for me when I finally noticed a massive hiking backpack strapped to his back. This was a runner in front of me, I don't know if there is such a thing as a "proxy sense" or some dumb shit like that, but I guess hunting, scaring and stalking the same type of people for a great amount of time, tends to create a certain amount of bias in your head that leads to the natural assumption that if a person looks disheveled and is carrying a massive backpack with them, it automatically means they are a runner, or as it used to be, an enemy.

"I can't do anything about the pants, but I can pay for a new cup of coffee for ya." And he walked off to the counter to buy me a new cup. As he was waiting by the counter, I started to get a better look at him, just so I could confirm that my assumption had merit. He had this long, green, tactical jacket with a lot of pockets, grey cargo pants which also had a lot of pockets, implying that those were some kind of industrial work pants that he had on. Said pants were firmly tucked into steel toed, black boots, the guy could easily come off as some kind of construction/warehouse worker if it weren't for the scars and that massive hiking backpack. On his head he had a black beanie and his face was fairly wrinkly, I'd says he was in his late 40's.

For some reason, the assumption that he was a Runner was not leaving my head and so I did something to definitely confirm it. Thinking back on it now, I'm not exactly sure why I even bothered to try and confirm on whether he was a runner or not, it's not like I still work for the Proxies, maybe some part of me was hoping that he would kill me, or something, I don't know. What I do know for a fact is that whilst he was fetching my coffee for me, I poured some salt out on the table and drew the idiotic "operator" symbol, remember that thing? Circle with an "X" in the middle, yeah been a while since that shit showed up, but it was definitely the most recognizable symbol for those that are running for their lives.

Naturally, when he was finally bringing me my coffee back that was the first thing he saw. The look of careless politeness was replaced with a look of sobering clarity, he was now faced with an individual who knew of his secret and worst thing for him, he had no idea which side I was on. I wasn't in a much better position, because as soon as I saw the look on his face, the sudden thought process of "wtf are you doing" dawned on me, at best I just singed my death warrant, at worst I just got my ass potentially kicked out of a cozy place without even having a bit to eat. To my surprise, he didn't just bolt for the door, which would be the smart thing to do, instead he asked me: "So, which one are you then?"

Considering that I looked like a wet, dirty rag the stench of which was now a mixture of the local river and the hot coffee that was spilled on me earlier didn't leave much to interpretation, so I didn't really have to convince him of not being a proxy "Which one do you think I am?"

"You can never really know, can you?" He kept looking down at me, gears are clearly turning, looking for any excuse to deem me a threat, but failing to do so "Regardless..." the serious look was replaced with a careless one, he shrugged: "Still owe ya a cup of coffee." He placed the cup on the table after which he said his farewells and was about to start heading for the door, but I stopped him.

"You came here to eat, right?" I asked him matter-of-factly, if you're a runner then you should understand how rare it is of an opportunity to actually stop oneself from constantly running and being on the lookout and manage to have a few minutes of peace eating some well cooked food. I wasn't about to ruing this guy's chance to take a break "Go ahead, I don't want to be the reason why you might skip out on some warm food."

He looked at me again and after a few seconds of obvious contemplation, he gave me a smile and sat down at my table, something that I didn't expect nor was planning on, I figured he'd just move to a different table or something "Well alright bud, a nice change of pace from eating alone under a bridge somewhere."

He set down his hiking backpack next to him and began to take an order from the waitress that just now showed up to wipe up the table from the earlier spilled coffee. As soon as the waitress walked off he immediately introduced himself "Name's John by the way, nice to meet you."

I decided to refrain from using the name that I go by here, just in case he knows of my blog, chances of that are very slim, this guy looks like he's been around the block for quite some time now, but there is always a small chance, so I just went with my real name: "Kyle"

After that we engaged in some war stories, so to speak, apparently John was a blogger at some point himself, he told me that he was writing around the time the first Sages were being named, so yeah, he's been around for a while. I was willing to catch him up to the events that had transpired but he wouldn't let me, told me that there was a reason that he withdrew from the blogs and concentrated on survival, said that the more people wrote about their tortured lives, the more dread they created, especially when things would start becoming complex, whatever that meant.

We talked about how we ended up in that diner that we met in (I obviously made up a story as to why I was covered in lake water) and that carried the conversation in an unpleasant direction for me, we went from talking about how we ended up in the diner to how we ended up in this situation to begin with. Obviously he withdrew certain bits of information, but the overall message was clear, he started running during his Uni years, which would make him somewhere around in his 30's, which blew my mind when I thought about it, because the amount of gray hairs in his ginger beard and wrinkles on his face made him look as if he was in his 50's.

But yeah, his story didn't really stand out all that much from a typical Runner story, looked too much into certain things on the internet, got visited by the Tall Fuck, started running, then started blogging and etc. You know the drill, I'm sure, he talked about how he used to run with this one specific group, said how they were like family to him, how they took care of one another, you can pretty much guess how that ended for him. One by one his "family members" began to get killed off, by suspiciously precise ambushes from the Proxies, except for one, the one he was in love with apparently, she met her demise by the Tall Fuck's hands.

Later on he found out why the ambushes were so precise, one of their own was leaking information to the Proxies in their area, in exchange for safety. When John found out about it, he "murdered the shit out of the piece of crap". After that a typical reaction followed: Devastation, depression and eventually contemplation of suicide, according to him he was about to go through with it too but two things prevented him from killing himself. He had a realistic nightmare about how his loved one was still alive, but was trapped somewhere, suffering unspeakable torture's and then he checked up on the blogs for the first time in years and he saw that people were still trying to fight against the Tall Fuck and were actually trying to scientifically research the damn thing. That apparently gave him the motivation and resolve to try and contribute, to try and fight it, to find out on whether that nightmare was real and his loved one was indeed still alive, or if it was just that, a nightmare. And so many years of fighting began, he would try his hardest to be the hunter rather than the prey and apparently his efforts would eventually lead him to meeting up with a different group of runners who were just as hell bent on fighting as he was and for a few years they did just that, only quietly.

He began to develop similar bonds with this new group, to a point that he began to completely forget about why he was even fighting to begin with. So naturally, he was very quickly reminded of it, when one of the members of the group died in a confrontation with the Tall Fuck. Rest of them managed to escape but John couldn't get over that loss, he claims that he thinks it was the PTSD that led him to his breakdown, after which he deemed it to be much safer for the rest of the group if he left them, since he was a liability.

That's where his fight was finished, from that point on he would only continue to concentrate on his survival and nothing else. Originally he wanted to be alone in order to find a different solution, an approach to his situation, but in the end he decided that isolation from other people was the best course of action and so he's been running ever since, trying his best to forget about the nightmares. Since then he's bumped into plenty of runners, never really sticking together with them for too long, helping where he could and then leaving.

At first I was slightly judgmental of him, what's the point of surviving if you've lost everything and you know for a fact there's nothing more to your life other than survival, pain and suffering? Stop prolonging the inevitable and just kill yourself, you know? It wasn't until he asked for my backstory (I told him, but obviously it was sprinkled with a few lies in order to not reveal that I was a proxy, or that I was involved with the Bandaged Idiot) that I realized how our backstories mirrored, despite the fact that I was a proxy and he was a runner.

So I asked him, what was the point?

You know what he said?

He said that ultimately, there is no point, at some point we'll bite the dust and that there is no happy ending for us, that's the belief at least. However personally, he wants to prove that belief wrong, partially he admitted is because he is still driven by revenge, the fact that he is still alive after all those years and had managed to escape his pursuers and the Tall Fuck to this day, in his mind, is a big middle finger to them. But that's only a small portion of the motivation, the bigger reason is the fact that he has always been a rebel at heart, apparently he flirted with the idea of suicide several times, 3 times he almost went through with it and yet every time he stopped himself, because this idea of just handing them the win and just giving up knowing full well that, that's not how his loved ones (deceased and living) would want to see him end up bothered him a lot more than the survival game.

In retrospect, it sounds so fucking dumb, like who cares right? The loved ones that are alive probably already think that you're dead because you've been gone for so long and the dead ones, who cares what they think? They're dead, they can't think.

But at the time, it struck something in me, don't know why but I started thinking about death in a different light since that conversation, let's just put it like that. Me and John would end up sitting in that diner for a few more hours and just chatting, hell we even ended up hanging out for a bit after we were done with our food, talking about our hobbies, interests, experiences and other shit like that.

I miss my drum set.

After that we parted ways and I haven't seen or heard from him ever since, he's probably long gone in a different city, or country. Rest of the summer I spent thinking, relaxing, suicidal thoughts would creep in on occasion, pretty sure I came close to ending it all when I was just walking across the bridge. The sudden urge to just throw myself over the railing was too strong, the memories and the nightmares hitting me like a train in that instance and yet somehow I managed to will myself out of it, I collapsed by the railing, gasping for air, ended up vomiting's, it's funny how when I had a gun to my temple I had no fears of pulling the trigger, no shock, no second thoughts and yet, for some reason I couldn't do it. Now I was very willing to throw myself off the bridge, all I had to do was just step forward and yet, for some reason I fought against it, hence the shock.

My mind's a fucking mess, hence why I wrote this up, not for your sadistic pleasure although you'll probably still enjoy it, you sick fuck. It's more for myself this time, in hopes that it'll help me figure this shit out.

Nothing so far, but fuck it, I wrote up so much, might as well publish it.

Leave me alone, Holy shit.

So my inability to drink myself to death continues to persist. There I am, under some unknown bridge, in the middle of the night, not even remembering how I got there to begin with, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, hoping that it will just outright poison me, when all of a sudden the fucking Tarman decides to pay me a visit.

I didn't hear him sneak up on me, probably for the same reason that I don't much remember what exactly he was asking of me, I was fucking shit-faced. I can however figure out what he was potentially asking me based on the conversation we would proceed to have, he was probably asking me as to where my and the Bandaged Idiot's hideout was. I probably replied with some unintelligible bullshit, because whatever it is that I said to him, I could suddenly feel his cold as steel, tight grip on the back of my neck. He pushed me towards the freezing river and threw my ass right in, the sudden chill hitting my entire body disoriented me and I was splashing in that water like a little kid, slowly drowning, but he wouldn't let me. As I was going under the water, I felt the same cold steel grip wrap around one of my arms, instantly pulling me out of the water, his other hand grabbing onto my shirt and holding me by it in front of his rotting, greenish, ugly mug.

"Allow me to recapitulate, now that you are in a more nonindulgent state..."

Got a good look at one of his hands, the one that seemed to be made of cold steel, no wonder, either it actually is made out of cold steel, or it is encased in some kind of, medieval looking armor. One might assume he is a big Evil Dead fan, but the way this guy speaks tells me that he is not a fan of anything that is fun.

"What was the locus of your last inhabitation?"

Through rattling teeth, I promptly told him to go fuck himself for interrupting my drinking session and for sobering me up. That earned me a slam into the ground, after which he pulled out a butterfly knife, spun it around and stabbed it into the ground near one of my legs. The big hat covering his face in shadows, but I could still see the light reflecting off of one of his eyes, the one that had no eye lids, this guy was an ugly motherfucker.

"I do not luxuriate in rehearsing my queries, so impart the data that I seek and I'll be on my way."

Now I have no idea why the fuck he would want to know the hideout that we used to stay off the radar, considering that the Bandaged Idiot is not there and most likely won't be back there anytime soon, whatever the reason was, I wasn't going to give him the answer because simply put, what the fuck was he going to do? Kill me? Yes please.

To which he replied by grabbing me by the throat with his armored hand, dragging me across the ground, lifting me up and pinning me up against the wall. Gotta say, for a guy that looks like he is perpetually rotting away, he's pretty fucking strong.

His response to my "Fuck off, or kill me" ultimatum was to threaten me with some vague bullshit.

"Leer at me and tell me, does it seem like expiration is the concluding stop here?"

He took off his hat, the moonlight revealing his ugly mug, lipless teeth, one eye with no eyelids, no nose and green, rotting skin. It was amazing how his look did not transfer the same smell.

"I could mold you into an analogous being, or worse."

I guess he was threatening me with perpetual rot, I don't know what exactly it was that he meant, I was about to tell him a third time to fuck off, but both of us were interrupted by a third, more familiar voice, that was coming from the shadows, the thick Jamaican accent echoing around us.

"You won't get anything out of him that way Terror."

I looked to the side and out of the shadows came out the weirdo with the golden teeth. With his half-bird mask on and weird ceremonial robe, as if he was back there the entire time.

"Pardon me Mr. Eko, but I deem this a personal matter that does not concern a speculator's interruption."

And just like that we had a name for the mysterious messenger that's been popping up here and there. Looking at "Mr. Eko" the Tarman decided to let me go, allowing me to promptly slide down to the ground against the wall. I would start walking away then and there, but something tells me I'd end up in a pinned position again, so if I was going to listen, I'd rather do it in a comfortable position.

"The boy is stubborn and wants to die, there is nothing you can threaten him with."

Damn straight.

"And what do you propone?"

This is where I was caught off guard, because out of his robe he took out a piece of paper, I was able to see what it was, they were coordinates. I didn't know where they would lead to, but I knew that they were aimed at the hideout that we used. You see, the hideout we were using this entire time was this weird pawnshop that the Bandaged Idiot's friend used to own and apparently it moved, true enough every time I'd step out of it, I'd be getting out in a different location, I have no idea how any of that shit worked so don't bother asking, but that is how we managed to avoid being tracked this entire time. Until now I guess, unless those coordinates led to some random shit-hole instead.

Which is exactly what big green and ugly thought.

"And I reasoned that the plebeians of Examia were accorded to not impede on the events."

I have no idea wtf Examia is, don't bother asking me, half the shit this guy says sounds like a random word salad.

"We are not. Shifting is not "impeding" Mr. Schreck."

Now, I'm sure he was using the German word for "Terror" when referring to the Green Freak, I'm assuming a name he used in the past, however, it is much funnier to assume that he named himself after the meme.

Gang Green looked at me, then back at "Mr. Eko" who was still holding out the piece of paper with coordinates on it, clearly thinking over his options here. In the end he decided to go with the coordinates, but not before he decided to leave us a few more of those lovely word salads.

"This is just a supposition, but I suspect that you have been metamorphosed into an apparatus."

Yeah fantastic, as if that wasn't obvious already. After that he put his hat back on, took the coordinates and walked off. So I was now alone with "Mr. Eko" so obviously I asked him what the fuck he meant by me being "metamorphosed into an apparatus". To which "Mr. Eko" replied:

"Follow me, we have much to witness."

And then he began walking away, clearly assuming that I was just going to blindly follow him without any answers, so I told him to either answer my question or get bent. He stopped and slowly turned towards me.

"You didn't listen to me once and now you have a child haunting you, do you want to make the same mistake?"

In retrospect, writing this up, I should have seen it as nothing more than manipulation... but fuck man, I ended up following him, I don't know why and I don't need a thousand comments telling how much of a bad idea it was, I know, but you know what, go fuck yourself, right off of your high horse.

It wasn't all that bad, I walked after him for a few hours, neither of us saying anything to the other, until I got fed up, stopped and asked him where the fuck he was taking me. He just stopped, looked at me and then proceeded to walk further into the alley, I was about to follow him but a loud metal clanking sound that was caused by a trash can being tipped over by an alley cat caused me to look away from him for a few seconds, which is when he pulled his disappearing act, because when I looked back, he was gone.

So after being interrogated by Shrek and dragged out into a random alley by a weirdo, I thought I earned a little break and so I went into a diner that was just outside the alley to grab a seat and get myself some coffee, then I decided to update the blog with this write-up, no idea why, you'd think I'd throw the laptop into the river at this point, but here we are.

Welp here I am

 Slightly drunk and high off my tits, about to probably make a fool of myself, but who cares right? All of you are fucking dead anyway, just screaming into the cyber void at this point. It's kind of funny you know? I was chastised so many times for being dumb enough to go with that asshole's plans, which in retrospect was true, I was/am a dumbass, correctomundo bruv, give yourself a pat on the back you egotistical prick.

Oh wait.

you can't, none of you can, cuz you're all fucking dead! Nowhere to be found, probably buried 10 feet under in some shallow grave in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere, yeah that's right, you're all dead AND I'M STILL FUCKING ALIVE

WHY

I don't fucking know

god knows I wish to be fucking dead

But I just can't seem to get there, I mean, I got what I wanted, Martha's dead, Alesa's death was avenged, that's it, time to [ack ur stuff and say farewell à la bullet-to-the-dome express. Yet here I am, in this park, half buzzed-half high, middle of the night, on my own.

Yeah snapped at Franky earlier to leave me alone, still feel kind of shitty about it, however in my defence, I was planning on killing myself and I didn't want him to stop me. But like I said, I've been on this bench for 8 hours now, my gun safely tucked away into my jacket, thought I'd just blow my brains out and be done with it BUT I FUCKING CAN'T

and i don't know why

My hand just can't seem to have enough strength to grip the gun and raise to my temple, which is fucking stupid, it makes no fucking sense, I shouldn't have this problem at all. I literally have nothing left to live for, all of my friends are fucking dead, all I have to look forward to is a lifetime of paranoia and near-death experiences, and rcentl I found out that I can't seem to get a decent amount of sleep no matter how much I try, because that kid's tear filled face FUCKING haunts me. He's always there, staring at me with those giant eyes of his, fuc kman I knew I was going to get fucked over, but I was hoping that it would end in me dying, not... fucking this.

And where in the fuck is the tall fuck!? I thought he got a slender boner for when one of his victims was alone in a forested area in the middle of the night, well here i am fucker, where the fuck are you!?

this is fucking stupid FUCK

You're not as clever as you think you are.

 Martha.

That's right, we know you're not dead, we knew from the start.

It was a good plan, because we didn't know what you look like, there was no way to be sure that was really you that tried to suicide bomb us in the mansion. But you weren't clever enough to ask yourself, if Franky was there, why didn't we just use him to Path out of the mansion, or ask him to send some Denizens our way to help us out, instead deciding to fight it out ourselves?

Because by the time that the explosion went off, him and some of his Denizens were crawling all over the forest, looking over every entrance of the Mansion, making sure to watch out for anything suspicious. So when one of the vans that was parked at the front entrance of the mansion took off just as the explosion happened, it didn't take a genius to figure out that you were never inside of that mansion. That the mansion was just a decoy, just like the young woman that blew herself up to protect you. I actually feel bad for her, to throw her life away thinking that she is doing so in the service of your Tall Master, I still remember the words she spoke to me right before she detonated the bomb that was on her lap: "There is only Father and I am my Father's tool."

Poor, naïve idiot. I wonder how she would feel right now, when she would find out that she wasn't her "Father's" tool, but yours. What kind of lies did you feed her to convince her into thinking that her throwing her life away in order to allow you to get away, was in the service of the Tall Bastard? I'm sure I'll find out when we have our conversation. For you see, once Franky saw the Van pulling away from the mansion, him and his pets followed it.

I must applaud your caution, for a whole month you were hopping from one hideout to the other every 3 days, occasionally changing your appearance along the way, a haircut there, a slight tan here. On some level, it was enjoyable to find out that the "Higher ups" are plagued by the same level of paranoia that every regular proxy, or runner go through. Until eventually you stopped at this house, you've been here for a whole week now, I guess my and the idiots little charade of pretending that you're dead worked, it's funny how easy it is to weaponize these blogs against people, but I would know all about that now wouldn't it, after all, I am an ex-proxy.

You won't see this post, like I said, we will be having our own conversation. There will be no time for your people to warn you, because this post will go up as soon as I hear the lock on your door clicking. That's right, all three of us are in your house right now, we were very careful to not touch anything as we were sneaking in, wouldn't want you noticing anything out of place. So why exactly am I writing this post then if you won't see it?

A message to your subordinates. Don't bother trying to warn her, this post has been pre-written, all I have to do to publish it, is press the 'publish' button on my phone and like I said, I will do so only when I hear her coming back into her house. There is nothing you can do to save her, which leads me to my message...

How does it feel? Feeling helpless? Useless? Welcome to the world of all the poor fuckers you torment, all the runners and fellow proxies that you torture on the orders of some "higher up" just because they claim they have a "special" connection with the Faceless Cunt. I hope that when you find her body, on some level your dread will sink in, as the realization of how absolutely pointless you are washes over you. You are not "Father's" tools, not you, not Martha, nobody is. That thing has no need of any of us, nothing you do progresses it's goals, because none of us know if it even has the concept of a "goal". Whatever reason you use to justify your servitude is just that, an excuse, a lie that you tell yourself in order to convince yourself that you are a some kind of stepping stone for a grander purpose. All of it is bullshit and it's bad for you, so hopefully once this "Higher up" is dead, maybe the truth will click in place. But who am I kidding, you will still try to ring her up to warn her of her upcoming demise.

Go right ahead, like I said, futile.

Can't even get a drink

Franky and myself Pathed out of the hideout, so I could get some booze, because I had ran out.

Now before any of you come along, proclaiming loudly how much of a dumb fucking idea it was to not only get drunk, but to do so outside of the safehouse, I'm well aware and at the time could not give less of a shit, could not give less of a shit now either, so save the lecturing.

But yeah, after getting the booze from the closest store, we went to the park, where I proceeded to try and get shit-faced. I was about half a bottle in when he appeared out of nowhere, startling us from behind with that thick Jamaican accent.

Me and Franky scrambled off the bench, me pulling my gun out whilst Franky got into this animal-looking stance, as if ready to pounce at the source of the voice. The weird looking freak just raised his hands, holding a book in one of them, smiling at us revealing his golden teeth.

"Calm yourself and your pet thing, I have not come to raise conflict."

"Yeah, like I'm going to believe that." I tightened the grip on my gun.

"From where I'm standing, you are currently the one that is escalating the situation."

"You're the one who fucking snuck up on us!"

"I did no such thing, to sneak up would imply ulterior motives on my part. What I did was merely approach you."

"The fuck for?" I allowed myself to lower the gun, despite it being night time we were still in the middle of a public park, waving the gun around wasn't a good idea. Franky eased up as well, which in result allowed our visitor to let his hands down.

"You present a quandary, your participation in the current unfolding events is confusing, hence why I'm here, to clarify."

This guy was already annoying me, I was not in the mood for cryptic bullshit at that point in time, it didn't help that I was also buzzed.

"Clarify fucking what? Fuck off dude, before things really escalate." I began to turn towards Franky, about to ask him to Path us out.

"Clarify as to why you are still here." That made me stop, no, not his pseudo-philosophical implications, the fact that he was interested specifically in me.

"The fuck you care?"

"Same reason I keep an eye on any other unravelling event..." He began to slowly pace to the side of the bench that was between us "I am our Grandfather's tool, one of his many tomes, the purpose of which..." He stopped by the side of the bench, probably noticing that we were slowly backing away "Is to learn."

Then he pointed his finger at me.

"You, Kyle (My last name) are a curious part of the events, mainly due to how insignificant you are..." I was about to interrupt him to not-so-politely ask how the fuck he knew my full name, but he just carried on speaking over me "It is quite obvious that, that other... thing..." Heard level of disdain there, which probably meant that he was referring to the Bandaged Idiot. "Is the key part in the events that will unfold, so the question is, why are you still here?"

"Because I love every fucking minute of this hell that I'm in." I proclaimed sarcastically, if you couldn't tell "Look mate, if it's my reasoning you want, go read my blog and stop wasting my time." I was kind of getting tired of the conversation at this point.

He began laughing. That laugh was... too clear for a regular person. You know how when people laugh you can actually hear the throat release air, or their voice go higher, or lower, depending on the type of laugh and all that other similar type of shit? None with this guy, his laugh was way too clear, no change of pitch, no sensation of breath escaping his mouth, nothing, as if he was hollow on the inside.

"You poor, deluded fool." He leaned on the bench with one hand "I have no interest in your petty romanticized, vengeance-fuelled motivations!" He leaned his entire body on the arm of the bench "I am curious as to why you are still here."

Was getting kind of confused at this point, also irritated "Yeah, I got it the first time, no need to re-" then I cut myself off remembering what the bandaged idiot commented on my last post "Wait, are you implying that someone's keeping me here?"

No response, just that smug smirk.

I offered one in return, coupled with a mocking laugh, just for good measure, because what he was implying was absurd "Now I know that you're just some goon in a goofy costume, sorry mate, hate to break it to you, but once all of my shit is done here, I'm blowing my brains out."

Whatever smirk I had on my face disappeared quickly when he gave out that empty laugh again "Is that so?" He got off the arm of the bench and began walking away from us with his arms folded "Be weary Kyle (My last name) the out you think you have, may not be as accessible as you might think." He stopped and turned around, holding his book by his chest "Think about why you're still around." He offered a last smirk before opening his book, from which a wave of pages suddenly flew in our faces, obscuring our vision of the costumed freak.

Once the pages settled on the ground and I could see clearly again, he was gone. Following him, the pages fell apart into dust and were blown away by the wind.

Fuck this shit, can't even get shit-faced in peace.

there was no soldier

 THERE WAS NO FUCKING SOLDIER

it was her... she was dangling off of that tendril, looking at me, that warm smile still on her face

dear fucking christ i saw her entrails, seeping out of her stomach, blood in gallons pouring onto the floor, hearing every drop hit the wood AND THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD FUCKING DO ABOUT IT

WHY

just let her go FOR FUCK SAKE just let her rest

FUCK

Thank You Lockdowns

The idiot locked himself in the bathroom with his little book.

Good, gives me some peace and quiet to write up this post. So hunt for Martha Hall, it's been rough, when I looked through Charle's internet banking on his phone (Idiot left autofill on) he did indeed receive payment directly from Martha Hall at some point. Which is out of the ordinary because scrolling through his bank statement, whenever there was a monetary influx of a significant amount, it was always from indirect accounts. I'm not sure why she decided to pay him directly from her account and it doesn't really matter, what did matter is now I could track her IP, meaning that I could find the location from which the transaction was conducted at the time.

Now assuming she is paying attention to this blog (Or, let's be real, has someone else doing it for her) I am obviously not going to state what the location was, hoping that she herself doesn't remember where she conducted that payment from. So the next step will be to travel there and hopefully find something that will lead me to her.

Oh and Martha, since again, you are probably reading this, I will find you, there is no doubt in my mind about that, I'm more confident about my chances now than ever before. Simply for the fact that your constant jumping around the country has now been effectively halted, no doubt about it, all thanks to covid and the lockdown it has forced on this country. I know for a fact that you are cooped up somewhere and can't move, you're fucked. So do me a favour, when I find you, do give me a proper explanation as to why you killed her, in your spare time rehearse the explanation, because I don't want to go through a stutter-fest much like I did with Charles, got it? Good.

That's pretty much it.

Oh, another thing, The Idiot remarked that he knew of my back-and-forth emails with Hannah, now him knowing about this doesn't bother me, what bothers me is HOW he knows about it. Once he gets out of the bathroom, I plan to get an answer to that question, because I don't particularly enjoy the idea of the idiot hacking into my email, or however else he learned of my conversations with Hannah. On the positive side, if he did indeed somehow hack into my emails, that means that he is paranoid of foul play coming from my side at some point, which is hilarious to think about. Good, let him be paranoid.