1811: Slender: Find the Eight Pages They Said : Chapter 5

 

Title: Slender: Find the Eight Pages They Said
Author: seclinalunica
Media: Video Game/Creepypasta
Topic: Slender: The Eight Pages
Genre: Horror/Suspense
URL: Chapter 5
Critiqued by Ghostcat and Syl

 

 

 

Hello, dear Patrons, and welcome to another chapter of this plodding Slender Man fic. I’ve gone over the notes from the previous chapter when I was unavoidably detained, and…

“Detained?” :snorts: “You fell asleep!”

:clears throat: Yes, well; in my defense this is a really boring fic in which nothing ever happens, not even when Slendy does bother showing up.

“Tell me about it. At least you didn’t have to sit through that weird-ass tunnel/roll cake scene.”

Anyway; in case you can’t tell, Syl is riding shotgun with me on this chapter. Something about having to put in a minimum number of hours in order to qualify for a replacement phone, or something. When Lina starts using legalese I kind of space out.

“Hmph. I wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t eaten my phone.” :sighs: “The things I do for an unlimited data plan.”

I didn’t eat it, I just bit it a little; I never swallowed.

“That’s what they all say, love.”

:coughs: Do you think you could get your mind out of the gutter long enough to give the synopsis of the last chapter?

“What’s to tell? Some genderless drone in a sweater that may or may not have pockets found a piece of paper on a tanker and then wandered around a tunnel that might have actually been a roll cake before running off again.”

So basically a whole lot of nothing, just like the other chapters.

“You’re the one who picked this fic, not me.”

AN: Hello everyone. Here’s chapter 5 of Slender. Please read, review and enjoy!

Wow, that Author’s Note really added a lot to the fic.

“Yeah, about a dozen words.”

Chapter 4: Page 4

11:00 pm

“Damn, and me without my watch.”

That wasn’t your watch to begin with, and Bifocals is still on the warpath.

“Meh, she’s a Teutonic marshmallow. What can she possibly do to me?”

You do realize she’s the one who developed weaponized glitter, right?

“…Goddammit! oh, wait; I know what to do.” :holds out hand: “Gimmie your phone.”

The hell I will!

“I need access to the Library’s systems and someone took a big bite out of mine.”

:squints at Syl: You’re not going to download porn, are you?

“Don’t be such a prude; I just need to send a quick note to Crunchy.”

:hands over phone: Just don’t do anything that could get me charged as an accessory.

“Worrywart; at this rate you’ll go grey before you hit forty.”

Time has passed by, and Slender wasn’t around.

Are you sure? Maybe you should look behind you a dozen more times just to be certain.

It was a challenge to discover the next landmark.

Why are they still looking for landmarks? The last one they went to, that weird tunnel/cake thing, didn’t have a page anywhere near it.

“Because it happens in the game, of course.”

That is not an acceptable reason.

Footstep after footstep, I couldn’t bear travelling anymore. My legs felt as if they were about to snap off my body. I had to rest.

And it’s no wonder; thanks to the constant time-stamps we know exactly how long the Nameless Narrator has been wandering around this forest. They left their car at six-thirty; if it’s eleven o’clock now then they’ve been walking and/or running for four and a half hours. That’s a long time even if you’re not being chased by an otherworldly abomination through a spooky forest.

“Hey, think fast!” :tosses phone in Ghostie’s direction, who fumbles but manages to catch the device: “Nice catch, nerd!”

:Ghostie gives Syl a death glare as she checks her phone:

“Seriously, everyone’s going to have to call you Gramma Ghostie before too long. That reminds me; you’re not very good at video games, right?”

I’m not very good at the games you like because I prefer open-world exploratory games or puzzle-based games instead of ones that revolve around filling an enemy with as many holes as possible, if that’s what you mean.

“Right, right; you like the boring ones. Anyway, you’ve played this Slender game, right?”

Yes? Where are you going with this?

“Did it ever take you more than four hours to finish?”

Well … No, not that I can recall. It’s a fairly short game; even after dying repeatedly I managed to finish in about half an hour.

“Yet this person’s been going on for nine times that long and hasn’t even found half the pages yet.” :clicks tongue: “Not even your dragon is that bad, and he can’t even reach all the buttons on the controller.”

Gumdrop can’t help having short arms and only a couple of fingers on each hand!

“Settle yourself, girl. He’s surprisingly good at Dance Dance Revolution, though.”

Apparently trying to walk through the Library without squashing anyone does wonders for your rhythm and balance. But you do have a point; if the author is adhering to the gameplay mechanics – and for some reason they have been – then Slendy should be getting steadily more aggressive with each found page. There’s no way this bumbling incompetent would have been able to evade a teleporting predator for this long.

I switched the flashlight off, and slowed my walking pace.

:Ghostie headdesks:

“If there was justice in the world, this idjit would run smack-bang into a tree right now.”

Or Slendy.

“Oooh, even better!”

…I just made myself sad.

Seconds later, I switched it on again and low and behold, another landmark appeared in front of me.

“Since when can Whatstheirname teleport?”

:Ghostie repeatedly headdesks:

“You can’t hammer out the wrinkles, love.”

I don’t have wrinkles!

“Mmmm-hmmm. Whatever you say.”

Stop that; not even you can distract me from this frickin’ lazy-ass writing.

“Such language! You must really be upset.”

It’s just so. Frickin’. Lazy! The Nameless Narrator flicks off their flashlight YET AGAIN and when they turn it back on; hey, presto! New scene. As transitions go this ranks right up there with those blasted POV Tags.

The landmark was a wooded area, but the trees were cut; and now they reside as tall stumps.

So it’s the place formerly known as a wooded area?

“There’s only one way to know for sure; look around for a sign with an unpronounceable symbol on it.”

I was extremely nervous around this landmark. Slender was around; I could feel it.

“Of course the creepy stalker bastard’s around; that’s what makes him a creepy stalker bastard.”

:Ghostie glances at Syl:

“What?”

I find myself agreeing with sensei’s assessment.

“What, you mean when he called me an eye-boogey? I thought it was a little juvenile.”

Eh; Japanese idioms and colloquialisms can seem a little … strange when translated directly over into English.

Looking behind my back was now a severely consequential decision.

“That a weird way of phrasing things.”

:Ghostie headdesks:

Why is the narration constantly trying to make it seem as if looking behind you – which is a natural thing someone would do if they were being chased – is some kind of epic action?

“It’s not as if there’s a whole hell of a lot going on otherwise.”

I guess that’s true, in a sense. The game doesn’t give the player a lot of options; you either go forward or look behind you.

“Don’t forget the flashlight.”

Right, and turning the flashlight on and off. This isn’t a lot but it works fine in a short video game; however, trying to stretch the same thing out over multiple chapters turns reading into a chore.

I sauntered around the cut woods, and searched trunk after trunk.

Because when I think of someone running for their life, I think of sauntering.

“You, too?”

I started to panic, fearing that I wouldn’t be able to find the fourth page. This was more than an appalling situation.

If you mean this lackluster attempted to manufacture tension, I agree.

If I make one wrong move, Slender could catch me.

“If he actually wanted to, which I highly doubt he does considering the way he’s been pussy-footing around lately.”

Turning my body to the side and facing another tree trunk, I searched around it; there was nothing. I searched the next one; there was nothing. And I searched the next one; there was nothing. I feared that I wasn’t going to find another page.

Wow, this is just so :yawns: exciting. :fluffs headdesking pillow: Please, continue doing nothing.

:Ghostie sits bolt upright:

GAHHHH!!!

“You like? Been watching a lot of Disney movies with Swenia’s kitten lately.”

I’ll let you known once I get my heart rate back down from hummingbird speeds.

Carefully searching around the next tree, I noticed something flat.

Could it possibly be a sheet of paper?

“Silly Ghostie; then what would we do for the rest of the chapter?”

Find a quiet place to contemplate all of the many mistakes I’ve made in my life?

“But that’s what you do every Friday night.”

Zooming in closer, I noticed that the flat object was one of the pages.

Wait, wait, wait; what does that say?

“The zoomy bit?”

Yeah, the zooming bit. This person is ZOOMING IN to see the paper better?

“So what? I thought the game used a video camera.”

I t does, that’s why there’s static and other visual artifacts when the Slender Man gets close. But the fic doesn’t have a video camera, it has the Nameless Narrator – who is, as far as I can tell, a human being.

“You have a point?”

HUMAN BEINGS CANNOT ZOOM IN!

:Syl falls backwards out of her chair:

I stood in front of the note for a moment or two as I caught my breath.

Probably because you just broke physics with your frickin’ eyes.

LEAVE

ME

ALONE!

“I would, but I really want a new phone.”

I think that’s supposed to be what the paper says.

“How can you tell?”

At this point, I’m just guessing.

I observed a small sketch of a tree beside the words.

I guess we can tell who just got a brand new thesaurus.

“Poor thing; it never stood a chance.”

After reading the fourth note, I felt the same way. For once, I wanted Slender to leave me alone.

For once? Does that mean that all the other times you were secretly wishing he’d pay more attention to you?

“Sexy attention, involving multiple tentacles?”

It’s not that kind of fic.

There was a slight crackle, and soon after that, static appeared in front of my eyes.

:THWACK!:

No it frickin’ DID NOT, because EYES DON’T WORK LIKE THAT!

:THWACK!:

:THWACK!:

:THWACK!:

:Syl pulls a lever marked EMERGENCY FOAM, drenching the room in lilac-scented foam:

Well, this is different.

“Housekeeping’s getting real tired of cleaning up exploded Xenomorph bits every time you pitch a fit. On the bright side, now I don’t have to do laundry this week.”

He was somewhere around me. I quickly seized the fourth note, and stuffed it with the others.

Either down the front of your sweater, on in your suddenly appearing sweater pocket.

I forced myself not to look behind me.

“It must have been agony.”

Things were getting more suspenseful by the minute;

:Syl looks at Ghostie:

:Ghostie looks at Syl:

BWAHA-HA-HA-hahahahha! :falls out of chair:

“Oh, my sides! MY SIDES!”

—SOME TIME LATER—

:wiping away tears:“Oh, that was a good one. ‘More suspenseful’ indeed!”

‘More suspenseful’, my freckled fanny.

“I thought those were birthmarks?”

Stop looking at my bum in the showers!

“Never.”

and it felt like page after page, Slender was approaching closer and closer behind my back.

He should, but :looks around Void: he seems to be curiously absent lately.

“Almost like he gives no damns about this person.”

He’s not the only one.

I could imagine his long arms hovering over my head, ready to pounce and take me somewhere far away.

“Somewhere warm and sandy, that has those little umbrella drinks.”

I can’t say that sounds all that bad – minus the Slender Man part, of course.

“You have your fantasies and I’ll have mine.”

I shifted my body to the right, and the static increased.

:Ghostie growls threateningly:

“Do you need more foam?”

I sprinted into the vast forest to shake him off, but the static wouldn’t subside.

:THWACK!:

Because it’s a figment of your frickin’ imagination!

:Syl pulls the lever again:

Gah! :wiggles in chair: I think it’s seeping into my underpants.

“That’s why I never wear any.”

More information than I needed, thanks.

Was I running right in front of him, or was he constantly running the same pace as I was behind my back?

That’s two ways of saying the exact same thing.

:alarms blare:

Dammit.

“Please, allow me.”

:Syl saunters over to the door and forces it open, releasing a flood of foam into the hallway. As confused murmurs from the agents drift into the riffing chamber, Syl removes a flare from a vest pocket, pops the top, and tosses it at the agents before slamming the door shut moments before a massive explosion rocks the Library:

What the hell was that?

“Oh, did I forget to mention the foam is hydrogen based and thus explosive?”

You may have neglected to mention that little fact. I assume you mean hydrogen gas and not just hydrogen in general; I mean, water could be considered ‘hydrogen based’ and it’s not explosive.

“You’re still mad about the ending of Wonder Woman, aren’t you?”

Maybe a little.

It was a chase.

Oh, so if someone is running away from somebody who is pursuing them, that’s considered a chase? Thanks for explaining things for me, I don’t think I could have figured it out on my own.

“You are very lucky all the sarcasm detectors in here exploded a long time ago or we’d be in the center of a massive fireball right now.”

I continued running and pushed branches aside. I turned the flashlight off, hoping that Slender wouldn’t be able to find me, but something in my gut told me that if I did that, the enemy would become more erratic. I switched the flashlight back on.

:sighs: The author is trying really, really hard to make the use of the flashlight integral to the story in some way, probably because it’s one of the few actions you can perform in the game, and it’s just not happening. If I can use another fic from the same source materials as an example, I’ll protect you uses one of the same story elements – the paper attached to a tree – but expands beyond the limits of the original game.

“Into a giant rolling clusterfuck involving werewolves, dark magic, and cannibalism.”

Granted it isn’t the best example, but I don’t really have any good ones to use. Even this fic started off by trying to give the player character some back story, which is a good idea in theory, but in practice everything quickly got bogged down as the author tried to make finding each individual page into a separate chapter. This whole fic could be edited down into a oneshot and it would be much easier to read.

“And significantly shorter, which I’m all in favor of.”

“Run, run, run, run, run, run, run!” I exclaimed, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!”

The author definitely got themselves a thesaurus.

“Am I the only one who wants to call Whatstheirname ‘The Gingerbread Man” now?

11:15 pm:

“It’s getting to be past your bedtime, Ghostie.”

I’m an adult; I don’t have a bedtime!

Whatever you do, don’t look behind your back.

:double snort:

“Not bloody likely.”

You’d have better luck convincing Crunchy to become a vegetarian than you would keeping Nameless Narrator from turning around every other paragraph.

I jumped out of the forest, and appeared in an open area. I peered from side to side. In front was the short building that I observed in the distance before entering this crazy farm. I walked a little closer to the brick building, and noticed that it was some sort of bathroom.

I’ve been on remote farms before and I don’t recall any that had actual bathrooms in a purpose-built structure; there typically isn’t any plumbing or septic system in place for flushing toilets (nor is it very cost-effective for farmers to have flush toilets in an area that is rarely used) so workers have to make do with Port-A-Potties. The structure seen in the game looks more like the sort of thing you would see in a well-maintained park or a highway rest area, save for the noticeable lack of toilets.

“There’s chairs.”

…You’re not allowed to use my chair anymore.

“Oh, don’t tell me that there is a page in there.” I said as I wandered closer and closer. “No, I won’t go in.”

“Bet you a nickel they go in.”

That’s a sucker bet; they’re going to have to if they are keeping to the “search every landmark” strategy. It’s usually a good idea to try to find this structure early in the game, to minimize to chances of Slendy trapping you in a dead end, but I’m willing to give this a pass since technically the Nameless Narrator wouldn’t have known about that risk when they started out.

“But they saw this place from the road and were actively looking for help. Wouldn’t this have been the first place they would have gone to?”

Well … shit. I guess you have a point. Instead of heading straight for the ‘bathroom’ or whatever this is supposed to be, they just started meandering through the trees.

I peeked over my shoulder, and Slender appeared in the distance.

Wasn’t he just chasing this person? Why is he only appearing now?

“Must have had a dentist appointment.”

He doesn’t have any teeth!

I quickly walked backpedalled into the bathroom.

Yay, you verbed the noun!

“They double verbed the noun if you want to get technical.”

:alarm remains eerily silent:

“Damn. I brought a whole box of flares, too.”

I kept an eye on Slender who just stood there watching me. I squealed and whimpered, as I crawled deeper and deeper into the shadows of the bathroom.

Ewww, don’t crawl in the bathrooms! It’s probably disgusting in there.

“You’d rather take your chances with Slendy?”

Actually, this version hasn’t really done anything all that scary. Sure he’s teleported around and followed the Nameless Narrator, but he hasn’t really threatened them at all. It’s super creepy, but not really all that scary.

Then he disappeared; and I felt like exiting the washroom,

Don’t forget to wash your hands!

“Give it a rest, Mom.”

Please don’t call me that.

but I knew he was somewhere inside, and would eventually make his way into the building.

“Hopefully before Ghostie dies of old age.”

Would you please give it a rest? You’re older than I am.

“But I’m ageless, darling.”

Slender might block or corner me, but all I know is that I should leave as quickly as possible.

Thus avoiding the whole “blocking and/or cornering” thing.

I came up with a plan as I turned around, and started on my search for the fifth page.

“Who needs a plan? Just keep wandering around and you’ll either stumble over what you need or it will just fall into your lap.”

It’s sad that you’re probably right.

Plan A: Get in and get out.

Plan B: Run and scream and exit without a page in hand.

Plan C: Throw Slender a rave.

Or Plan D – go back to the fence and get the hell out of this place.

“I’m leaning towards Plan C my own self.”

You would. Speaking of plans, any idea how you’re going to escape the wrath of Bifocals?

“I’ve gotten it taken care of. Crunchy will do any fanart for the right price, even a rather risqué portrait of a certain member of Specs and Co, and I know a nice little print shop that can print on fabric and does rush orders, so the little kraut cutie should be getting her very own custom-made body pillow to snuggle right about …”

:exceptionally loud squeals of delight can be heard faintly through the reinforced concrete walls:

“Now.”

Damn. I didn’t know a human being could make a sound like that.

“I’ve done it before; but usually I have to do some intensive stretching ahead of time, so this was a nice change of pace.”

Chapter five: Page 5 coming soon…

But not after wasting a lot of time flicking a flashlight on and off.

“Hey, we are going to have a rave!”

:Ghostie repeatedly headdesks:

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