What Is Love?

Chaper Thirteen

Danny Dare

I ran. It was the only thing I really COULD do. I was lost and defenseless... but I was not alone. Ironically, I so desperately wished that I was.

I didn't know where I was running to, or even if I was going in a straight line or not, but it don't matter so much WHERE I was running to, so long as I KEPT running.

Because he was still behind me.

Yes, the fucking Slender man was chasing me, and if he caught me, I knew I would die. What other option was there?

I could feel the slender sickness eating at my mind just from the sheer closeness of proximity. My mind felt as if wasps had taken up residence and made a nest between my ears. They swarmed around the inside, buzzing incessantly and sting me with poison laced stickers over, and over, and over again. The longer I ran, the more it infected me. My burning lungs fought desperately for some fresh air that wasn't heavy as lead from his evil aura. I had to use all of my strength to contain the harsh, rib cracking coughing fits that raked my body and threatened to send me to my hands and knees. As it was, they were already enough to slow me down drastically and cause me to stumble to and fro like a drunkard. I couldn't afford to slow, however. If I did, he would catch me.

And I would die.

Another coughing fit hit me and I clutched at my throat. I desperately ached for the air my body needed to keep moving. I fought the weakness that slowly diminished my reflexes and ability to stay upright, but it was to no avail. The sickness eventually won.

'Funny,' I thought to myself as I hit the ground, 'how he defeated me before he even touched me.' I made no move to get up - it was pointless. I could FEEL him there, standing over me. I didn't look up though. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of letting him see the life leave my eyes as he killed me. I'd read somewhere once that killers got off on that - watching their victims loose the light behind their eyes as they died.

Tentacles wrapped around my ankles and my wrists, binding me so that I couldn't move. Then he picked me up so that I was dangling in front of him in the air. Still, I refused to look at him.

"What do you want with me?" I couldn't help but ask in a breaking voice.

He didn't answer, and I didn't expect him to.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I choked, unable to stop a solo tear from sliding down my cheek.

Another slick tentacle grabbed my chin and forced my head up so that I had no choice but to look at him. He looked at me without eyes and cocked his head to one side, as if thinking very hard about something. Oddly, something about the gesture struck me as familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Please don't kill me," I begged.

The Slender man gave me a look that clearly asked, 'Why?'

"I don't wanna die yet."

'Why?'

"I don't know..." I admitted in defeat. Honestly, what excuse did I have other than my natural human instinct to survive? It's not like I had anything going for me really. No one would miss me if I died. The world wouldn't stop just because my heart did. 

I closed my eyes in a grimace, admitting my defeat, excepting my death. "Please don't drag it out too long. I'd rather not feel much," I made my last wish. "Honestly, I kinda want a quick and painless death, but that's not really your style, is it?" My eyes flashed open again and I glared up at the spot where his own would be if he had any.

The Operator froze, becoming like some horrific marble statue as my defiant gaze bored into his. After a few moments, he shook his head slightly as if trying to get a hold on his thoughts. And then it hit me - the full force of his slender sickness powers overwhelmed me completely as he forced his aura on me.

This was so much worse than the wasps nest earlier - the wasps were a product of him just being near me, but not really TRYING to drive me insane. 

This... This was literally living hell. This was the Fields of Punishment in Hades. This was the Cruciatus Curse. This was one of Saw's most horrific machines. This was torture.

Pain wasn't merely a feeling anymore - pain was my entire being. It controlled me. Overwhelmed me. Pain was my new persona. It rendered my body a useless shell of a person. What had once been inside was slipping away, spiraling down, down, down into a dark abyss.

I tried to scream, but I couldn't. My body wanted to squirm and convulse from the pain, but it couldn't.

I wanted to die, but I couldn't.

A dark laugh broke through the fire that gripped my mind and body, and as if by some miracle from God himself, the torture stopped. Tears flowed freely down my face and my whole body shook like a leaf. My mind was exhausted, and unconsciousness was not far off I could tell. The last thing I saw was a pale white face leering down at me with a surprising, and very frightening predator-like smile. Then everything went black.