The Tall Man's Twisted Forest

Man, tonight's finally the night, college freshman, Ted Sanders, thought to himself. After tonight, initiation will be over. Tonight is the night I finally become a real member of the 'Occult of the Operator.' The name didn't quite work, but you can't beat alliteration can you? Of course, he knew who the group was named after: The Slender Man. The man. The myth. The monster. Anybody who has ever seen him in person is either dead, insane, or both. At least that was the bullshit they'd all talk up around campus to anyone superstitious or stupid enough to listen. Honestly, it just gave a bunch of grown men something to do on a weekend that wasn't getting drunk off their asses. Again. They planned to make a small indie film centering around an investigative journalist looking into a series of disappearances in the local area. There has even been an argument on whether or not to make the film found footage, but that was ultimately squashed. The group was already monikered after the name for Slender Man in the much more successful 'Marble Hornets' YouTube series. Fuck it, they were living their dreams. The majority of them were art majors anyway. Ted had wanted to play the lead in the film, and hell why shouldn't he? He had the lean frame, smarmy face, and height that instilled him with a false sense of confidence whenever he decided to do something stupid; like tonight for instance. The Occult, as they called themselves, gave him a task to prove himself worthy of the part. A simple one, in fact. All he had to do was go into the forest, snap a picture of Slender Man on Polaroid, and make it out alive. Of course by Slender Man, they meant they're gangly friend Dave in a rather well put together cosplay Ted managed to get a peek of while studying in their dorm last week.

The task at hand was already proving more difficult than expected due to three factors all working in conjunction with each other. One, Ted wasn't very fond of the dark. Two, he was even less fond of the forest when it was dark. Lastly, it was fucking freezing.  Assholes, Ted thought. Who sends a guy into the woods this late at night to take a picture in the dead of fall in Ohio? At least they had the decency to give me a flashlight. The woodland was eerily beautiful this time of year. A thick fog coated the forest floor, so much so that it seemed to be emanating from the trees themselves. The gentle mist from earlier today gave everything it touched a dim sheen under the full moon. Moonlight maliciously danced around sparse branches, creating shadow puppets not unlike the claws of a beast. They reached out, hungry for their next victim. At least when Snow White was in that spooky ass forest it was during the day, he thought to himself. He was so distracted by the cold and low visibility that he hadn't realized his only accompaniment were the leaves crunching beneath his feet. He was in the thick of the forest, deep. The outside world had become quieter than a whisper while the air remained still. It was deathly quiet. Ted began to feel nauseous, but tried to mentally assure himself that the cold was activating his asthma. It didn't work, he was afraid. Worse yet, he felt like he was being watched. The nausea began to form a knot in his stomach, and his pace quickened. Before the panic could fully set in, Ted was given a small bit of reassurance in the form of a dim light peeking through the trees. Headlights?

The light instilled a bit of confidence in Ted. The beam of his flashlight began to sway, rhythmically, to pace he was jogging to as he made his way to what seemed like a clearing in the trees. A grin crept across his face. Finally, this is it. He'll catch up with his asshole buddies, take the dumb picture, and spend the rest of the night with them over beers laughing away the chill of the night. However, something felt... off as he got closer to the lights. Through a small bunch of branches, Ted broke into a clearing in the trees. The moonlight was at its strongest here, shooting straight down as if to spotlight the horror that was about to unfold in front of his eyes. The source of the lights were found; it was Bill's pickup truck, grill wrapped around the base of a tree. However, it wasn't just the tree the truck was stuck against. The pickup pressed Bill's lifeless body against a thick trunked tree. A spray of blood and viscera painted the vehicle's hood and windshield. The engine was still on, he had attempted to flee. Ted turned his gaze a few feet from the base of the tree and found another Occult member, Matt. Well, what was left of him anyway. Matt's body lay covered in blood and muck. It looked as though a large, feral animal ripped right through him, partially tearing him half. From where Ted was standing, he could make out part of the small intestine and a few broken ribs revealing his heart. Ted retched where he stood until the breaking of branches snapped him to attention. With his flashlight, he could just barely make out a body tangled in branches covered in dark fabric. Oh my god, Dave. The wind shifted, and his body hit the ground with the grace of a burlap sack full of hardcover books. Ted rushed over to him. He found Dave's body partially in his cosplay with branches twisting and jutting out from within his body. His face, or lack thereof, was completely torn off with his eyes missing as well. Only a blank, bloody skull stared back at him. Ted began to weep, his best friend since freshman year, dead in gruesome fashion right there in his arms. Before Ted could transition from sorrow to hysteria, the branches were violently ripped out from the body smattering him in barely warm blood.

"Whatthefuckwhstthefuckwhatthefuc-" Ted exclaimed as he scurried back in a hurry, kicking up loose rocks and twigs in his frenzy. He managed to scramble his body into an upright position, on his feet, then into a brisk jog towards the break in the branches he'd come in from. I don't know what the hell I saw, but I'm getting the fuck outta here! Full sprinting now, Ted was flying through the forest as fast as he could. Over rocks, dodging trees, kicking up leaves. He didn't know who or what he was running from, but he knew he had to get the hell out of this forest. Shit! Ted dropped his flashlight in a panic, only had bits and pieces of moonlight to guide him now. He didn't know how long he'd been in that forest, but it was still dark as hell. So dark, that he didn't see the overgrown root catch his foot. Ted fell into a violent tumble through bramble only to be stopped by a tree smashing into his side. The impact knocked the wind out of him and nearly caused him to lose consciousness. I can already feel that my ankle is sprained. Nevertheless, he got up and began to limp deeper into the thick mess of bramble and twisted branches. Apart from the crunching of dead wood, the forest was deathly quiet still. Trudging along, his duster was starting to get caught in the branches. He fought it for a bit, but his right arm became encased in branches. Outstretched, barbs pierced his skin, and the grip only got tighter, beginning to tear into his flesh. He was nauseous again, it definitely wasn't his asthma. His right leg was next, but it was wrapped tightly to his left. Finally, his left arm was given the same treatment as the other, effectively crucifying him where he stood. He couldn't tell if the pain made him delirious but he saw the branches snaking their way towards him, they were a sickly, inky black color. The branches worked their way slowly though his body just as they were in Dave's. The blood loss was making him weary which is why Ted didn't question when he began to rise into the air, hoisted up only by those sickly, inky branches. The branches lifted him until his face met the moon. Wait. No. That's not the moon. What greeted him was a pale, white face. Featureless. Like a void.  Beneath the void was a long slender body adorned in what looked like a suit made of a tar like substance. The branches that burrowed in his body weren't branches at all. Tendrils. The nausea was at its peak now, Ted threw up a second time tonight saturating his already sweaty clothes.

"You're not supposed to be here! You're not real, man, you can't be real." Ted cried blearily. The being before him didn't even acknowledge him, instead it began to slowly tear apart Ted's body. Bones popped and sinew strained, but Ted couldn't hear any of it over his own screaming. The sickening squelch of a tendril through the mouth silenced the scream, and the forest became ever quiet yet again. The Slender Man began to gradually take his place among the trees, swallowed by a forest. Darkness shrouded its body until there was nothing visible but the face.

The pale, white, featureless face disappeared among the trees.