fucking fuck

Right so, lots of weird shit happened, not sure why the fuck I'm writing this up, I've got a million other things to do, one of which is to try and find a fucking way out of here.

But Hannah insisted on me typing this up, mainly because she wans to keep Ghost posted on what's happening over here, which I don't get at all, dude just abandoned her, no reaction to her predicament, nothing.

Hell I don't even know how useful this will be since time here is all sorts of fucked up, I can publish this and this shit might get posted years from now... Fuck that's an wful thought, being stuck here for years, kind of a relevant thought though.

If anything it's nice to have this moment of peace and quiet. Don't get me wrong, this place still makes me jump at every little sound, every little moving shadow out of the corner of my eye, hell even when it's quiet that usually doesn't calm me down at all, it just means that the place is prepping some real fucky shit to hit you with.

Instantly reminded of the days when me and a bunch of other Proxies were selected to be trained on how to use The Path, now there's a PTSD inducing flashback I don't mind re-living and yet, every time I would step into this place, fuck man... So many blogs out there that describe this place, none of them do it any justice, this place fucking eats away at you, slowly breaks you, you truly feel like you're walking through hell, imagine fucking living here for years, fuck that.

Right, so I think she left off with the sound of church bells in the previous post.

Yeah that wasn't fun, shortly after publishing the previous post we did indeed hear church bells in the distance, which for this place made no sense. I mean, I know that I just spent the last few paragraphs moaning about how the whole "not making any sense" was the main schtick of this place, but travel through here long enough and you learn to pick up the different varieties of "not making any sense", including the ones that don't belong.

Church bells was one of those. Hannah definitely did not pick up on it, it's her first time in the Path, didn't expect her to. But I instantly noted how... natural the Church Bells sounded, they weren't distorted, warped and didn't feel like the sound was coming from any direction The Path chose. They legitimately sounded like they were coming from one specific place within The Path. Now some might consider this a bad idea, but fuck you, I was outright lost in there, we were running on fumes, had nowhere to go and this was the first thing that emitted a sound that didn't mean an immediate threat of being ripped apart by the Denizens.

So I told her to close up the laptop and start following me as I tried my best to follow the sound of the fading church bells. We ran past the dilapidated houses that filled this massive field we were on, keeping my ears open for any whispers around us, stopping dead in our tracks right in front of a deep forest of black, tall, naked trees. The idea of climbing through that wasn't something both of us relished, it almost made me want to reconsider my plan at the time, but again, running on fumes and no idea on where to go made me press on.

I'll tell you now, shit fucking SUCKED.

Before we could get proper deep into the forest, we had to crawl, climb and break through a row of thick and sharp as fuck brambles. Bramble bushes were as black as the trees in the forest, the tips of the thorns on them were slightly white, but that was the only color on top of the thick blackness that we were crawling through, apart from our blood of course. There was only two things I was worried about, losing Hannah behind and poking my eyes out, but luckily neither happened and when we finally crawled our way out of the brambles, I had experienced the greatest relief I could, laying there, on my stomach, catching my breath as my muscles burned, same with Hannah.

Our rest was short-lived as I began to hear whispers all around us, increasing in volume, meaning that the Denizens found us and were getting closer, we had to run, so we did. Looking out for black branches whilst you're running from an unseen assailant is very hard, a few of them nearly took my head off but luckily my experience in this hellhole long since adjusted my eyes to the fucky environment. Guiding Hannah through the whole ordeal as we ran was the hardest part, normally I would have already been able to find a hiding place and wait out the Denizens, but with Hannah struggling to navigate through the forest, we were significantly slowed down, whispers began to grow into snarls which mean that we were out of time.

I grabbed Hannah's hand, pulled her behind me putting myself between her and what I assumed was an approaching Denizen, pulled the fucking sword out and prepared myself to suffer through a scuffle that would leave my with sever scratch and bite marks. I caught a glimpse of it's shining orbs that were it's eyes only for a second as they were approaching us with great speed and as I braced myself, I heard the same crackling noise that we've been hearing along with the church bells erupt through the air around us. The next second I could feel thick liquid splashing over my face as the Denizen's body fell limp to the ground with a loud thud, dead. It took me a minute to register that the crackling sound was that of a gunshot and somehow, from somewhere said gunshot delivered a death blow to our stalker.

I tried to look around in order to tell where the gunshot came from, but saw nothing. Then this pained and loud shrieking began to erupt from deeper inside the forest and I could see a warm light appear which stood out drastically among the thick black trees of the forest. So we headed towards it, albeit very slowly now that we knew that there was a gunslinger around. The further we walked, the less thicker the forest became but not because it was ending, the black stumps in the ground told the story, somebody was chopping the trees down in here. A little bit more walking revealed a gallery of Denizen bodies impaled onto the trees by what appeared to be some kind of traps made out of the same trees, somebody was Rambo'ing it up in here. The pained shrieking became louder and at this point we could clearly see a Denizen walking towards us slowly, it was on fire, waving it's arms around, clearly trying to put itself out. Hannah wanted to shoot it then and there but I told her to stay quiet because the Denizen was still walking towards us, still shrieking in pain, fire engulfing it further and further. Any Denizen that would see it's prey wouldn't slowly walk towards it, meaning that whether it registered our presence or not, it was clearly transfixed on staying alive first and foremost, so instead of wasting a bullet, we would begin to walk past it.

We kept walking, still transfixed on the gruesome fate the creature was dealt, which is when we heard something different to all the shrieking that was filling up the forest, someone's voice echoed from somewhere in the forest urging us to stop.

"Stop brother, unless you want to share the evil spawn's fate." A raspy, elderly voice shouted out from somewhere within the forest. Looking around I saw that if I had stepped any further I would have fallen into a hole in the ground, joining an impaled on sharp wooden spikes Denizen down there. Properly confused, I was about to shout out and try to get a response, but I was interrupted by the rampant growth of the whispers around us, the Denizens were yet again gathering around us in full force, that's when I heard the voice again. "Follow the sound of salvation brother, quickly!"

Then the church bells began to ring out again and we immediately bolted in the direction of their source, as we ran through the forest, swatting away and ducking under branches I could hear the Whispers continue to grow, the church bells kept on ringing, the gun shots rang out through the air, I could hear bullets wheezing past us, sometimes hitting flesh and sometimes hitting the trees, an explosion in the distance followed up by an all too familiar shrieking and all of this cacophony accompanied by the insane laughter of the elderly voice.

We made it out into a small, open field and were greeted by an insane sight. Massive log fence, outside of it were various body parts that looked like they belonged to Denizen's impaled onto wooden stakes that were stuck into the ground, some on fire. From behind the log fence peeked out a top of a wooden church the massive, rusty bells ringing loudly from said top, right next to them a shadowy figure yanking the rope of the bells, whilst holding some kind of rifle in the other hand. "Inside brother and sister!"

With that welcoming statement we ran in through the massive open gates and while the figure fired off his gun at the few Denizens that were still hot on our trail, we quickly pushed the massive gates, closing them. It was few minutes before the shots went silent and the bells stopped, we just waited by the church entrance, still not sure of who this lunatic was. Hence when the doors of the church began to open, I prepared myself, whoever this guy was, it is obvious that he's been here for a while, this place can fuck with you mentally in a few minutes, fuck knows how crazy this guy was.

"Thou are not the savior I prayed for, yet I shall not forswear companionship of untainted souls." Yes that's how he spoke. To match his weird ass style of speech, his looks weren't any less weirder. He looked like he was 50 years old, but he was fucking jacked and moved quite nimbly, so I'm assuming the reason he looked so old is because he's been inside The Path for fuck knows how long. He greeted us without a shirt on, revealing numerous scars and stitch marks all over his body, big metal cross hanging from his neck down to his chest, messy grey beard on his face. His legs were covered by what looked like the bottom half of a priest robe, underneath it I could see messy, camo cargo pants and black military boots.

"Father Garrick, the Lord's humble servant."

Yup, a crazy religious nut, who somehow managed to survive within The Path for "many years" according to him. As nutty as he was, he did offer us to stay with him and with little to no options, that's where we've been for the past couple of... fuck knows how long.

Obviously not planning on staying here forever, just need time to come up with a plan.

Fuck 2 Electric Fuckaloo

 Alright hello.

Hannah here, Malik let me type up this next post because he says he doesn't care enough to do it and also because he thinks it will help me relieve some stress that I've been under.

Not going to lie, right now it isn't helping shit, my hands are shaking, my ears are humming and the heat is overwhelming. But I'll keep on typing despite that, because quite frankly it's nice to do something familiar in a place where nothing makes any sense. Brings back that aura of normalcy y'know?

Oh also, Fell! I'm sorry that I couldn't reply to your comments both on my blog and Mal's! I tried, but this place does some wonky shit with the internet. I'm very happy to see that you're still kicking too! Hope it stays that way for a long time.

Oh also also, the reason I'm posting on Malik's blog from his account is because I'm not dumb enough to log into my account and potentially compromise G's web security.

Speaking of G, not going to lie, kind of disheartening not seeing any comments from him, or anything at all. Was kind of hoping that he wouldn't just leave me in trouble, I mean I know that I put myself in this situation completely disregarding his warnings and rules. But I still thought that he wasn't cold enough to just leave me on my own, but that's G for you, he's always been fairly distant, that doesn't mean I've given up hope or anything, I sincerely believe that G's a good guy. The silence just kind of stings, y'know?

Maybe this writing thing is working a bit, hands stopped shaking despite the loud crackling noises in the distance, gonna ask Malik what to write about next.

Ok so he says that he didn't catch you guys up on what happened after we got to this hellhole.

I guess I'll do that although I might fuck a few details up, because everything was a bit overwhelming, still is.

First thing I remember was hurting from the fall, not sure where I fell from or from what type of height, all I know is that it hurt. Trying to stand up two things immediately stood out, the pure white grass that was underneath me and trouble breathing. Gasping for air was very difficult, it's as if I was just barely above water, slowly drowning, only replace the coolness of water with the hotness of lava and you have a somewhat accurate description of my slow suffocation. I thought I was going to pass out so in confusion I tried to find any kind of sign of normalcy, so I looked up to the sky. There was no sky, not any kind of sky that I've ever seen, there was nothing but a purely red, blinding light surrounding the fucked up, black and white forest we were in.

Staring upward would begin to slowly hurt, that's when I felt a hand shoving my head from the back into the ground, stopping just short of the white grass. Somehow, through the painful humming in my ears I could hear his voice, instructing me, telling me not to look up for too long, that it disorients, can even permanently blind you. Malik then proceeded to instruct me on breathing, to slow down, calm down, realize that I'm not suffocating, it's just that breathing takes a little bit more effort here. We sat in that spot for a few minutes, Malik obviously giving me a chance to get a grip.

He then tapped me on the shoulder and told me that we had to start moving. Easier said than done, standing up was what seemed like at the time an impossible chore. It's as if some kind of invisible force was pushing me down towards the ground, I still managed to get to my feet, but moving was going to be awkward on account of my legs shaking just from trying to stand. That's when Malik hoisted one of my arms over his shoulder and helped me move, saying that the more I move, the more I get used to the pressure.

I'm proud to say that I have indeed gotten better at it, this place is weird, sometimes the pressure changes and it can almost knock me down back to the ground, but overall I seem to have adapted to the whole walking bit in this fucked up place.

Luckily for me we haven't seen anything too fucked up, y'know, apart from the fact that the whole place doesn't make any sense. But luckily nothing grotesque or dangerous so far. The only thing that stood out is what looked like an abandoned village that Malik shuffled my ass through. Parts of old looking, wooden houses seemed to be sticking out of the ground, strewn about this field that we just so happened to be going through, the wood pitch black just like all the trees in this hellhole. Did somebody actually live here at some point? If so then how? I wanted to ask all of those questions, but Malik was clearly straining whilst helping me move, so I wasn't going to add to it by distracting him with questions that I most likely wouldn't get any answers to.

The creepiest shit so far would have to be the whispers. They seem to come from various directions and differ in volume, sometimes you can barely hear them and sometimes it feels as if the source of the whispers is just a few meters away. Whenever it would sound like the latter Malik would either force us to fall to the ground and stay motionless until the whispers passed, or find some kind of shelter, which is exactly what we're doing right now. He says that those whispers belong to creatures that him and the Proxies refer to as "The Denizens". From what I've read and what Malik told me, those are the creatures that inhabit this place and although they have a humanoid figure, everything else about them is terrifying. Skinny, hunched over creatures, their sharp bones nearly poking out from underneath their skin, said skin being so thin that you can see through it but only when light is shone directly upon them, otherwise their bodies appear completely dark, big black voids for eyes but again only when light is shone upon them otherwise they shine white in the darkness, sharp teeth, long claws. Basically two words: Nightmare Fuel.

Another weird thing I noticed, like I said we're currently sheltering ourselves in this cave we ran into. Reason for it is because the whispers began to get close again, so we ran into this cave and stayed put until they disappeared. However as I've said before, usually right after we avoid the whispers and they seem to slowly fade into the distance, we would always hear a loud crackling sound. It was faint at first, but it's been getting progressively louder the further we journeyed. Malik says he has no idea what that is, which worries me considering he's the experienced one with this place.

He's saying that we're going to need to start moving now, so this is where I will sign off.

Wish us luck, cause things just got a bit creepier, I'm pretty sure I'm hearing bells.

fuck

 I finally see some bars, about fucking time, been trying to send out a post for weeks now.

Reason for posting on this shit website again is because I was asked to provide an update by Hannah (I'll get into that), also because I REALLY need a distraction from the current shit that we're in.

So yeah, Hannah, Ghost's roomie who constantly tried shoving her nose in my business, she was talking about me in her last post, I'm the so called "friend" who she has been conversing with over e-mails. I can barely call it conversing though, all those e-mails came down to were regular check ups on me, she'd regularly e-mail me, asking me how I was doing, I'd reply for her to fuck off and that's it. Sometimes she'd get a conversation out of me (Usually we'd talk about favorite bands and etc.), but that was pretty much it.

After the events of my last post I stopped replying to her, nothing especially against her, it's just that after that whole ordeal with Fell and Eko I didn't feel like doing anything really. It got bad, to the point where I stopped eating regularly cause it was just too much effort and I guess my prolonged silence worried her, so she decided to use Ghost's unknown means of transportation in order to visit me in person, how she found me and how she was able to travel to my place in such a short time is something she refuses to explain, most likely to protect Ghost more than anything. Apparently in doing so she was going against Ghost's rules of laying low because they were being hunted by some group, or whatever.

Our meeting started out with her knocking on my flat's door, I was in bed which is how I spent the majority of my days not even registering said knocking until my flatmate opened the door. After a few seconds my name was now being called for, which rarely happened considering I barely see my flatmate and when I do, our conversations never go past the initial greeting phase, so they tend to never bother me. Curiosity got the best of me and I willed my ass out of bed, opened the door of my room slightly and shouted down asking what the hell he was calling me for. He then told me that my friend Hannah was here to see me, annoyance and curiosity was now replaced with surprise as I quickly started getting dressed, the whole ordeal made me feel light-headed, like I said, at some point I stopped eating.

As I walked through our living room that separated the entrance from the two bedrooms I could see said flatmate chatting with Hannah, asking her if she wanted anything to drink. As soon as he heard me approach he said a quick 'hello' to me and promptly fucked off to his room. Hannah just stood there in her black, sleeveless vest that was worn over a light blue hoodie. I could see the annoying look in her green eyes, look of worry, granted I must have looked like shit what with the countless bags underneath my eyes, but it's not the worry itself that annoyed me, it's that it was unwarranted.

"You look like shit." She remarked with a snarky smile, as she took off her black beanie, adjusting her long red hair.

"What the fuck are you doing here!?" I angrily whispered so as to not alert my flatmate, the place had fairly thin walls.

"Checking in on your dumb ass." She crossed her arms as if she was stating something plainly obvious and not something utterly fucking stupid.

And that's pretty much how our exchange went, with a lot of snark, tried asking her how in the fuck she even found me, didn't explain shit, all she said was that it was a 'company secret'. She asked me where the fuck I disappeared to and I told her that I didn't disappear anywhere and was at home the entire time, obviously leaving out the whole 'barely leaving my bed' business, not that I needed to tell her, it was obvious that I was in a poor state just from a glance. I was about to start telling her to fuck off before she got herself in more shit, but she interrupted me saying that she was hungry and that we were going out for something to eat. Now usually I would protest and stay on topic of telling her to fuck off, but I was too tired to engage in a full blown argument, so I agreed to go eat with her in hopes that during the whole thing I'd convince her to fuck off.

The walk to the local McDonald's was a silent one, not sure why she didn't talk, I didn't bother saying anything cause I was just too damn exhausted. The silence was broken once we sat down and had our food, the conversation began to repeat itself. Same questions on my end and same nothing answers from her, it was getting irritating and now that I had food in me, I had the energy for a full blown argument as I could feel my annoyance and frustration with her smartass attitude begin to build up. That's why I took a pause, calmed down, my outburst would attract attention which is something I've been trying my hardest to avoid, then I changed the topic.

"I don't need you to worry about me, nor do I need your help." I looked directly at her, giving her as much of a serious look as I could muster.

She just continued to stuff her face with fries and seemingly ignoring my serious tone. "Sure you do! If it weren't for me-" I didn't have time for her bullshit.

I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her in closer, forcing her to drop her fries in the process. "Listen to me!" I uttered through clenched teeth. "Spare the fucking Mother Theresa shit and think for two seconds." I let go of her hand once I saw that she was finally listening. "Not only are you putting yourself in danger, you're also putting my flatmate in danger, you're putting the whole block in danger."

"And how exactly am I doing that?" She less enquired and more protested, which showed just how inexperienced in all this shit she actually was.

"By making me move around again." As soon as I said that, I looked around just to make sure that my own words didn't immediately bit me in the ass, just like it happened many times before. "I already have a good amount of freaks keeping an eye on me, they seem to leave me alone when I literally drop dead." I took a sip of my sprite to clear my dry throat. "Add to that the assholes that are apparently pursuing you and Ghost, and we have a shit-fest that is brewing and at some point will explode."

Nothing but silence in response, a look of clarity on her face, it looked like I got through to her and yet...

"So what, I'm just supposed to leave you for dead, that's it?" Her voice was shaken. "You think I'm stupid, that I didn't think of any of that?" She looked at me, giving me her own serious gaze. "Well I did."

I was about to ask her as to why the fuck she thought it was good idea to drop by then, but I was promptly interrupted.

"I'm tired Malik, every single day I spend inside G's hideout, I barely go out, barely talk to anybody, I don't remember anything from before G found me, to my knowledge I've never ran into the Tall Fucker." She began to clench her gloved hands into fists. "My only way of learning anything about this shit without getting myself in trouble is by reading as many blogs as I can find." Now she took a sip of her Fanta. "Do you have any idea how many death's I've read through? No matter what it all ends the same and I'm supposed to do what?" She was getting worked up and thus a bit louder. "Just sit on my ass and wait for my death!?"

Now I had a surprised look on my face, mainly I was surprised at the level of clarity she was displaying, before this I tended to just disregard her as an annoying brat who had no experience in the type of shit we're all stuck in and that may be true, but like she said, she wasn't stupid about it.

"Well I'm done with that shit, if there's a chance that I can help someone, then I will." She looked at me with a determined look, she wasn't going to fucking leave, at least not until she was satisfied with the knowledge that I was alright, which led me to saying probably the dumbest fucking sounding thing anyone could ever say with a massively annoyed sigh serving as a prefix.

"Fine, if I promise to try my best to survive, will you fuck off then?" Like I said, dumbest fucking thing ever.

A minute of silence as she was staring a hole through me, then she lifted her hand and rested her elbow on the table, her gloved hand now being in front of me. "Shake on it." Stupid cringe overdrive, but fuck it, if it meant she'd fuck off then why not, I shook her hand. She tightened her grip and looked me dead in the eyes, sounding as serious as she could. "I mean it Malik, I want you to live through this, don't lie to me."

Wished she hadn't said that, I don't know how but for a split second it felt as if I was talking to...

Never mind, just didn't want to feel guilty over what was going to be a broken promise, in the moment though I conceded and we carried on with our meals, the conversation shifting towards something more pleasant like: favorite bands, movies, that type of shit.

We actually ended up sitting in there for a bit longer, even after we finished our food, no matter how much I try, can't deny the fact that getting the chance to shoot the shit with someone about random stuff was enticing. Sat around nearly until closing time, but I cut the whole thing short figuring that it was time for us to say our farewells and fuck off from each other's shit, but there was a problem with that. Hannah neglected to say that she couldn't just 'go back' to wherever it is she came from, that there was a waiting period for that, basically that she needed a place to crash for the night.

Was I annoyed? Fuck yes. Did I kick her to the curb? Nope.

I should have though...

Anyway, she ended up sleeping on my room's floor, reason I didn't let her sleep in the living room is because, despite me knowing who she is and us somewhat getting along, I still didn't fully trust her, at the end of the day this was a stranger that not only managed to somehow find me, but also travel all the way to my place from fuck knows where, so I wanted to keep an eye on her. Funny thing about going to sleep whilst paranoid, the slightest sound is guaranteed to wake you up which is exactly what happened when I heard the sound of screeching tires outside at 3 fucking AM.

My first mistake was taking the time to get out of my bed as I heard the doors of a vehicle being slammed shut, second mistake was not waking Hannah up immediately, third mistake was looking out my window and not being immediately suspicious of a Van that I've never seen before that clearly just pulled up and wasn't properly parked like the rest of the cars, fourth mistake was to keep staring out the window at the Van and it's potential owner who was leaning on it and trying to come to a conclusion on whether all of this was suspicious or not.

Those four mistakes wasted enough of my time allowing the passengers of the Van who were already inside the building, make their way up to the fifth floor (Where my flat was) and start knocking on my door. Ashamed to admit it, the knocking was the thing that finally registered in my brain as something being off. I scrambled away from the window, kick Hannah up awake, she was fairly confused and disoriented so I laid down everything in front of her as quickly as I could whilst digging through my clothes drawer looking for my revolver, while I was frantically doing that I could hear the knocking on the door become more violent, so I instructed Hannah to lock up my room's door (It had one of those old, shitty chain locks).

Just as I found my revolver I heard the entrance door get smashed in, I immediately told Hannah to open the window and start climbing up the fire escape (You didn't think I'd move into a place with no fire escape, right?) which is exactly what she did, of course you can't exactly swiftly climb through a window that shit takes a few moments and that's something we were running out of. The door of my room was slammed into by several men on the other side, they tried their best to push it open but the chain was doing it's job for now, the issue was some guy slowly aiming his gun through the gap in the door right at Hannah. As luck (Or curse) would have it, my shitty sword was resting against the wall right by the door so I grabbed it and slashed at the fucker's fingers, he ended up shouting in pain and dropping his gun on the other side of the door, not sure how the fuck my flatmate was sleeping through all of that but as soon as the guy screamed in pain is when I heard my flatmate's voice on the other side of the door, clearly lost and confused. By this point Hannah was through and now it was my turn, with one invader probably occupied with the thoughts of him missing 2 or 3 fingers and the other ones being distracted by my flatmate, I had a fairly clear and safe way through the window.

Hannah started to run down the fire escape but I grabbed her by the arm and forced her to go up instead considering that the driver of the Van was still down there and as I peeked down, was now aiming his own gun at us. As we ran up the fire escape I could hear shots echoing through the neighborhood, bullets wheezing past and implanting themselves into the brick walls of the building and loudly ricocheting off the metal rails of the fire escape. Had to spook this fucker before he nailed either one of us, so I just started wildly shooting my revolver (Which was loud as fuck) down in the drivers general direction whilst continuing to run up towards the roof, the goal wasn't to hit him, it was to force him to scramble for cover.

Eventually we made it to the roof in hindsight, not sure why I thought it was a great idea to trap us up there, cause there was nowhere else we could go. Jumping onto the neighboring roof would be impossible on account of the fact that it was too far away, this was it, the last stand, my only concern was Hannah.

I turned to her and asked her if she was able to get the fuck out now? But she was non responsive, shock and adrenaline pumping through her body, staring off into the distance whilst shaking, yeah she wasn't going anywhere, so I reloaded my revolver, got in front of her and aimed at the fire escape as I heard the footsteps on the metal railings of said fire escape get louder and louder.

Many thoughts went through my head, optimistic ones, pessimistic ones, a few memories, you know the drill, last moment shit.

I was finally ready to die, my only regret being that Hannah was probably going to join me.

So what happens?

A white, skinny, covered in some kind of black sludge and extremely cold hand covered my mouth from behind and in the blink of an eye the cold air of the early morning was replaced with suffocating heat, my eyes were seeing spots and the blue tint of the early morning was now replaced with a purely black and white aesthetic. As soon as I saw that I was no longer standing on the asphalt of the roof and instead my feet were buried within black grass I realized, we were inside The Path of Black Leaves.

Yes we, Hannah was right there with me, handling the whole ordeal worse than me, not surprising considering she never visited The Path before.

Those cold hands, I'd recognize them anywhere, Franky was the one who transported us here, Hannah confirmed it to me since she was able to catch a glimpse of his blank mask. Luckily for her she didn't catch a glimpse of the Tall Fucker like I did, right before I found myself here, I remember seeing him, just standing on the opposite roof, fucker's regained interest, not good.

We've been stuck in The Path for a while now, no sign of Franky, or the Tall Fucker (Thank God for that), hence why no contact, like I said I just now managed to catch some bars. It's been fucking hell in here, I've been in here a few times but never for this long and if it's starting to fuck with me, I can't imagine the shit it's doing to Hannah.

We managed to find some shelter for the time being, our first chance to catch a breather in a while, let's hope it's not the last one.

Getting tired now. Hannah's sound asleep for the first time, good. She really wanted me to get a post out, just to let Ghost know that she's still alive.

Yeah, still...

An Ex-Proxy

 And here I thought I was finally left alone, wasn't disturbed by any of this freaky dicky shit for months, no sign of Slenderfuck, no rotting corpses, none of the supernatural bullshit, just me, my new shitty job and my own thoughts that haunt me every day. Yes you read that right, once I got the fuck out of the town where I was boozing it up on a regular basis with a bunch of homeless folk, I got myself an actual job, nothing fancy working as one of the staff at one of the local Tesco's, started earning enough to afford to rent a single room in a shared house. Not much to say there either, I barely see or talk to any of my housemates which is exactly the way I like it and for a few months, past Christmas, New Years and any other dumb celebrations I was doing fine, I was finally left in peace so that my fucked up mind could continue tormenting me on it's own, without the assistance of the monsters and their freaks.

But of course I wouldn't be posting here if something didn't eventually go wrong, which it did.

As I was on my way home from my job in the middle of the night I spotted a glint of something shining at me through the darkness of one of the alleys. The dumb thing to do was to stop and look a little deeper into the darkness, should have kept walking, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I was able to catch a glimpse of my Jamaican Stalker, or as other freaks call him, Eko. I didn't need any hints from that point on, I instantly started running away from that spot as fast as I could, I didn't want to be transported against my will again to witness some more fucked up shit, but as I rounded the corner I got blasted in the face with a barrage of various book pages, with a strong wind blowing them directly at me. I nearly lost my balance and fell right on my ass, but I managed to stay on my feet and tried to see through the pages, to no avail all I could do was just stand in place and try not to fall. At some point during all of that the air temperature drastically changed from mildly cold to absolutely fucking freezing, which resulted in me instantly running out of breath, I started to feel light-headed and my legs started to buckle. As I tried my best to stay conscious and not fall down, at some point I began to realize that the wind that was blowing from before wasn't as strong and as directed, the pages that were slapping me across the face were replaced with something less painful and more wet.

Noticing the difference, I opened my eyes and was greeted by a brick wall, a thick layer of snow covering my feet and the freezing wind sending snowflakes to crash into my face. Confused and disoriented I instantly turned around to look where I was this time and as I turned, I could instantly feel my feet slip on the iced over ground sending me plummeting down the stairs that were apparently to my left. My loud descent was coupled by an equally loud barrage of profane words, shit fucking hurt, ultimately I ended up on my back at the bottom of the stairs which apparently led to someone's basement flat cause the only thing that was at the bottom of those stairs, apart from myself was a door. In pure frustration at both the pain and the fact that I was once again in the middle of fucking nowhere I lashed out and kicked the door.

Then the unexpected happened as I was trying to get up (Which wasn't easy on all of the frozen over ground) the door was opened and I was greeted with a surprised: "What the fuck!?" In hindsight, I should have recognized the voice from our previous meeting, but it's been a while since then plus I was disoriented as fuck, to a point where my vision was still blurry from the fall. The initial greeting was followed up by: "How the fuck did you find me!?" This did not help my confusion any, I still couldn't see who it is that was talking, I was too busy to try and keep my balance and crawl my way up the frozen stairs. "Fucking what? Find who!?" My brain began to function a bit better at that point, telling me that I should probably find out who it is that is yelling at me from the door, considering they seem to know me, so I turned around and the first thing that I saw was the said individual wielding a knife, which immediately made me try to scramble up the stairs whilst yelling: "Yo fucking chill!" Still not seeing whoever the hell it was in the doorway partially due to my blurred sight, partially due to the darkness of the apartment not making it clear.

As I was trying to scramble up the stairs a more demanding: "Stop right there!" Was shouted at me, so I obeyed. That's when the individual stepped out of the apartment and it was none other than Fell, which I'm pretty sure threw both of us into a state of confused shock. "What do you mean "find who"? You're at my fucking door, Malik!" It was very obvious by her face expression that she was trying to figure out how the fuck I was able to find her hiding place. "What? Did you get here by accident?"

"Oh shit." Was all I could really offer up in that moment, I was just transported into a possibly completely different continent, to meet up with a person who previously tried to take my head off (Rightfully so), to say that there was a million questions racing through my head would be an understatement, but all of those had to be put on the shelf as soon as I remembered Fell's short temper, so I raised my hands to show that I am unarmed, took a deep breath and began to explain through my chattering teeth how I ended up on her doorstep, which was basically that I was transported there by the Jamaican cunt and that I had no idea where the fuck I was, felt like fucking North Pole.

She cautiously looked up the stairs to see if I had anyone tailing me, then looked at me shaking in the freezing cold, sighed out, put her knife down and gestured inside of her apartment. "Get in here" I was about to turn down the offer, I kind of wanted to figure out where the fuck I was but a strong gust of wind managed to convince my already freezing ass to step inside. The apartment was pretty empty, the main room only had a laptop on a coffee table in front of an old, soft armchair and a single wooden chair in the corner, it was warm though. The awkward silence was kind of killing me, so I blurted out without thinking as to how "cozy" her place of hiding was.

"Hey fuck you. I can't exactly afford much especially when I have to keep moving" Can't argue there, hell this was better then my own living place. "Here, take a seat." She said while pointing at the armchair. "Do you want some tea or a blanket or something?"

This was throwing me the fuck off, why? Let me repeat myself, the last time we've met we were trying to kill each other, sure since then we've exchanged pleasant comments but that's online, there's a level of distance there both physical and mental, now we were face to face and the person who was once trying to take my head off was now offering me tea and blankets. That's not even mentioning the fact that I literally showed up out of nowhere, right in front of her hiding place that nobody knew about.

"Oh well if you prefer, I can shove this fucking knife up your ass and let you freeze outside." She immediately snapped in response to my concerns and this might sound strange, but that right there is what managed to calm me down and allowed me to actually sit down and relax in the armchair. After which I asked her if she wanted to ask me anything, considering I was the trespasser in this situation.

She pulled the wooden chair from its corner and placed it on the other side of the coffee table, sat down and asked. "Yeah, what the fuck are you doing here?"

And I pretty much repeated my previous answer, that I was transported by Eko without my consent, that I have no idea what his reasons are and that I wouldn't show up at her place because last time we met, we were trying to kill each other, also because I still had no idea where 'her place' was. For those of you looking for her don't bother, I wasn't told where it was that I was transported to, not that I asked.

She stared at me in silence, clearly thinking over my answer. "I don't like that he knows where the fuck I am, but there's got to be a reason he decided to dump your ass on my doorstep." She sighed "What the fuck were you doing before he sent you here?"

I of course told her that I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, like I've said, these past few months were very quiet for me to a point that I could work a fulltime job without any issues, other than the ones that my own mind would bring up.

She thought over the answer for a minute and just muttered to herself "Working and sleeping, huh?" Clearly trying to find some kind of reason as to why I was transported to her place, then she seemingly stopped thinking about it and just asked me "Okay, well how have you been feeling? You've been sober for a while, right?"

The answer was yes, it's hard to believe but I haven't touched a bottle the entire time since my previous abduction, the job helped battle the urge to dive back into the bottle, it served as a good distraction. However, some nights the urge is just too strong and I am left relying only on my own strength of will, I hate those nights. I returned the question, consider she had her own history with the bottle.

"Same." She replied "Sometimes I want to dive right back into the fucking bottle, but I know that won't help anything. Not in the long run" She frowned "There's no fucking escape from this shit..." She laughed but I wouldn't say that laugh carried any joy within it "Hell, I can't even fucking vent without a community getting wiped out."

She was obviously talking about the Wolf's recent escapade, it was plain as day that she blamed herself for what Wolf did, thinking that her sudden departure was the reason that Wolf did what she did. I... I think I got a bit triggered here, the self-blaming schtick is something I'm very familiar with and I hate to see someone else going through it, especially if the self-blaming isn't warranted in this case, so I told her to stop blaming herself, that the atrocious shit the Wolf did to those kids wasn't her fault, that none of said shit would have happened if the Wolf never had fucked with her to begin with. As I was saying all of that I leaned closer to her and made sure to look her directly in the eye and told her to save her self-blaming energy for the shit that she is actually responsible for.

"Is that what you've been doing?" She asked, redirecting the conversation onto me "Saving your energy for the shit you're responsible for?"

This next part... I'm not proud of because I broke down, because this is where I had to admit to someone the horrible truth of my existence, that I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I clenched the arm of the armchair as hard as I could, trying desperately to try and rip through the fabric, because I told her that every time I went to sleep I saw his face, the kid whose life I destroyed, all of that was very hard to talk about as evidenced by me choking on my words, trying desperately to restrain the tears that were coming down my face, until eventually I could not hold them back any longer and revealed to Fell how weak I was, asking her desperately for an answer that has been haunting me ever since I killed that kid's mom right in front of him, how do you go on after being directly responsible for something like that?

She was clearly not expecting a full blown breakdown, I doubt she was expecting to deal with this type of shit at all, yeah not my proudest moment. "I... well.." She began, clearly finding the whole thing either cringey, or awkward, or both "For a start, you weren't the one who made the kid fucking watch. The bandaged dickhead would have killed him if you didn't kill her right then and there..."

She meant well, but that didn't stop me from barking back at her immediately, in that moment I was not going to accept any kind of pity cause I simply don't deserve it, I yelled at her telling how what she was saying was bullshit and that she knew it. I got up and instantly tipped over the armchair in anger that was aimed at myself primarily, anger that was fully deserved because that kid didn't have to suffer, if only I had put my crusade for revenge aside and listened to Hannah and Fell who were telling me long before the incident that teaming up with the bandaged fuckhead was a bad idea. As I was ranting and raving I walked up to the nearest wall and started punching it, as hard as I possibly could, I'm not sure what I was trying to achieve there, whether I was trying to punch a hole, or break every bone in my hand, no idea, but one thing's for sure, it didn't stop me from whining more. At some point I did stop because my hand started to hurt, so I used it to lean against the wall as I proceeded to headbutt the wall once, wanting nothing more than to be killed off by someone, or something in that instant, fuck it was so pathetic, having a breakdown in someone's place, dumping unnecessary baggage at her doorstep.

I was about to headbutt the wall again as I felt my anger begin to build up again, but Fell's hand that was now on my shoulder prevented me from hurting myself further. "I... don't know if I have a good answer. I've done so much horrible shit over the years and the longer I live, the more people get hurt but here I fucking am, still going." She said after taking a deep breath "I'm a fucking serial killer for fuck's sake.....But maybe you can be something better..." In retrospect, I would have laughed at that, me? Something better? No way, not after all the shit that I have done. "You did what you did because you thought you were the only one who would fucking suffer and you didn't care about that..." I wish I was the only one that suffered "You made a fucking mistake and you can't change that.. but you can make sure it won't happen again."

Yeah, or fuck things up even further. I don't know what it was about what she had said, as you can tell I don't agree with all of it, but it was the way she said it in that instance, there was some kind of internal struggle that was coming out along with those words and it was that realization that forced me to snap the fuck out of my pathetic state, I mean for fuck's sake Fell has plenty of her own baggage to deal with as is and here I am not only showing up unannounced, but am also dumping my own personal shit on her doorstep. It was time to wipe away the fucking tears and change the course of conversation, I was shown kindness, undeserving kindness and I was damn sure going to try and return the favor, hence why I asked her if that's what she was doing this entire time, hiding in this frozen shit-hole, was she correcting mistakes?

"I don't fucking know. I'm just desperately trying not to make more!" She said with a laugh that seemed to come off as joyless.  "And I'm not just talking about the fucking blog or what the Wolf did." As she said that her face was a mixture of emotions, practically unreadable beyond, none of it was positive. "I still feel the fucking hunger that the Wolf gave me." She snarled "I still want to fucking kill. I HAVE fucking killed since I left her." She waved her arms in exasperation. "Granted, the fucker was trying to mug me, but I still did it and I liked it!" She ran her hand through her hair in what seemed like agitation. "I'm just trying to be fucking normal!"

So that's what all of this isolation was about, I picked the armchair back up and proceeded to face Fell, giving her a concerned look as both a realization began to dawn on me and the fact that what she seemed to be going through was somewhat relatable. Was this self-imposed isolation a rehab of sorts? A means to kick the 'Hunger' that Wolf forcibly implanted in her? That's why she had the job wasn't it? Same reason as me, to serve as a distraction from the urges.

"Yeah... A distraction. A distraction from that urge and from all the shit that the giggling fuckface stirred up." Fuck him, I honestly hope he fucking died wherever the fuck he fucked off to. She sat down in her wooden chair and put her head in her hands, this conversation was clearly getting to her and she was no revealing to me her own vulnerable side, whether intentionally or not and I was not going to fuck this up further. "At least there, I can pretend to be a fucking regular person for a while."

It's funny how much we seem to value the concept of normalcy as if such a thing exists at all. People have been doing atrocious things for years, even without being Slenderstalked, by no means am I trying to give us an excuse, I'm pretty sure we're suffering plenty for our actions, whether this self-imposed suffering is warranted or not. But show me one person who wouldn't become an emotional wreck after going through the shit that we did, if they don't they're probably a sociopath. When I looked at her I didn't see a serial killer, or some kind of horrible monster, I know what those look like, what I saw in front of me was a traumatized person and that's the only types of people that exist in this fucked world, those that experienced trauma and those that didn't. Put any of them in her shoes and I guarantee the majority will cross the same lines, because if they didn't, they'd be dead. This time I put my hand on her shoulder as a way of comfort but also out of respect, this was a person who's head has been fucked with for years and to see her face said trauma and try her hardest to undo the said fucking, that was something that I wasn't capable of during my lowest point in time, I either tried to roll over and die, or dive head first into a bottle. The only thing I didn't understand is why was she fighting the fight on her own.

To that she responded "I don't really have much choice, do I?" A pained smile crept up on her face. "Who the fuck else would or could deal with this?" She gestured to herself. "Besides, isn't that what you've been doing? Handling your trauma all on your own?"

I wouldn't say I was 'handling' it, but I didn't want to derail the conversation. Truth be told, I don't have much of a choice, the only friend I had I bitched away because I was convinced that I wouldn't be sucking air today and even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to find Franky, he's not exactly the type that can be found unless he wanted to be. She didn't though, sure her dumbass friend is apparently too stupid to figure out that staying with a monster like the Wolf is a bad fucking idea, that at some point it might be his ass on the platter, but that's neither here nor there. Fact of the matter both Hart and Fell care for each other a lot, that much is obvious from their comments to one another, so I stood up and shrugged at her and asked her what was the point of putting yourself through the pain of tackling trauma on your own?

"Hart has his hands full with the Wolf." She sighed. "I can't just dump my shit on him." Her gaze gravitated towards the ground. "I can't make him leave her if he doesn't want to, either."

To those of you who have similar thoughts about your friends during your times of crisis. What was just said is bullshit, friends are there to handle your personal baggage, not constantly obviously, but from time to time yeah, that's ultimately their whole purpose, to make your and their existence on this planet less shitty, because guess what, I guarantee to you that they have their own baggage that needs dumping and as a friend you should extend the same courtesy. Alesa fucking lived by that moto, even more so, the amount of personal demons in her life that I was not and never will be aware of and yet despite all of them she never hesitated to reach out and try to help, even to complete strangers... fuck.

Regardless my point wasn't that she yank Hart's ass away from his own crisis, it was that if what, if she really needed it, there was someone there for her that she could fall back on and that she shouldn't hesitate to ask for help.

It was a fairly long pause of silence, who knows what was going through her head at that moment eventually though she ran her hand through her hair. "I guess.." she said "Well... then you're not on your own either." This was bizarre to see, a small smile formed on her face, no pain behind it, no baggage, just a genuine smile, it's as if a completely different person was looking at me "We're talking shit out right now, aren't we? I don't see a reason why we can't keep doing that."

And we might have, for a moment I could hear Alesa in her voice as she uttered that last sentence. For the first time in months I felt comfort, that this was the moment where I get to dump my baggage that had been eating away at me for years. So of course this is the moment where the Jamaican cunt decided to show up.

"I'm afraid I would be that reason Miss Kristy." He was all of a sudden just there, casually standing in the doorway that I assumed led inside the kitchen, this time however I wasn't scared, maybe because on a subconscious level I already knew how this was going to play out, still anger is quite the unreasonable motivator, I got in front of Fell and started yelling at him, asking him what the fuck was the big idea transporting me to Fell's hideout.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! GET OUT OF MY FUCKING APARTMENT" I heard Fell exclaim behind me in surprise, as she leapt to her feet and swung around wielding a knife which she picked up from the coffee table, walking towards Eko fully intending to stab him if he didn't provide answers.

The fucker just continued smiling, his gold plated teeth shining through as he raised his hands in the air mockingly, holding onto some weird looking book. "There will be no need for that. I am only here to retrieve Mr. Kyle and place him back where he belongs."

Belongs!? Who the fuck did this guy think he is, what am I? Some kind of fucking monopoly piece that he just yanks around at his leisure!? I was frustrated at the fact that he wouldn't leave me along nor that he would give me any kind of answers, said frustration urged me to keep on walking towards him.

Fell was right behind me and if her snarl was any indication, she was just as pissed as me "Who the fuck are YOU to 'retrieve' him?! FUCK. OFF."

As I was about to join in telling him to fuck off, he quickly opened his book and a similar bombardment of pages was direct at my face, yet again. As I was now lost in my disorientation it dawned on me that I had once again played right into this fuck's hands. I was once again being yanked fuck knows where and furthermore I had no idea if Fell was along for the ride.

Just when I thought I had figured out a pattern to said abductions the fucker throws a curve ball. Instead of dropping me back where he yoinked me from, I instead ended up in the middle of an open field with no civilization in sight with nothing but the stars overlooking me. I turned around to try and figure out where the fuck I was and there he was, just standing there just a few meters away from me, with his book in his hands.

My first question of course was to figure out what happened to Fell since I didn't see her with us, to which he reassured me. "She remained where she was, she has her own role to play." I have no fucking idea what he meant by that, he hasn't exactly been the greatest at providing any answers, but considering this was the first time that she was actually stopping and talking to me, I tried to press my luck.

I could have asked about literally anything in that moment, however in retrospect I highly doubt he would have answered anything apart from this specific question that I felt like asking at the time. Why the fuck was he giving me this fucking therapy session bullshit? First a meeting with a long time Runner which subdued my suicidal urges, then the Hallowed Proxy which subdued my drinking issues and now Fell who was dealing with her own shit in a very similar fashion to mine. I picked up on this pattern the second Fell told me about how her days have been going, why the fuck was this guy so desperate in giving me some kind of fucking therapy session?

He didn't answer directly of course, just smiled and uttered more of bullshit. "We all have roles to play Mister Kyle." After which he stepped aside revealing a sword that was embedded into the ground behind him... my sword, the tool that I used to get my revenge... and ruined that kid's life forever. I had completely forgotten that I left it behind after having my fallout with the bandaged prick, seeing it again made me want to break down because it instantly brought back the memories of that kid's terrified face as he watched his mother bleed out.

"You know how this will go Mister Kyle, so cooperate for once, pick up the sword and I will  take you back home." I was too tired at that point, worn out and all out of anger, frustration, or tears and the idea of going home sounded way too appealing. I didn't even give a second thought that he might have possibly been referring to a completely different place than I understood as "home". Just did what he said, picked up the sword, it's weight seeming heavier than the last time I held it and he instantly transported me back to my room in my shared house.

Since then I haven't left the room, the sword is on the floor where I had thrown it after getting back. I don't want to kill myself, nor do I want to have a drink, I've skipped out on work to the point that I'm pretty sure I've been fired from there. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here anymore, for a second I felt liked I had found a way out of my misery, back there with Fell as we were about to go further into our shitty lives, the moment where I managed to feel genuine comfort for a few seconds before Eko yanked my ass out of there.

I don't know what I want.

God I fucking miss you Alesa.