What are we doing here? (Slenderman X Lost Reader)

Chapter 1: Camping

  "I must be crazy," you mutter to yourself, trudging up a mountain path with your eyes on the blindingly orange backpack in front of you. It sways back and forth with the movement of the person wearing it. You liked camping, but this was just mania. Climbing a mountain with people you've never met and a guide that was constantly high on some elicit substance? It really wasn't your style or something that you'd normally do. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," you chuckle, quoting your dad. Sighing, you look at the ground, focusing on the path instead of the ugly backpacking bag you had previously been staring at. Desperate times... Why were they desperate again? You struggle to remember how you got here through the thick brain fog of the last week.

    You let yourself drift into a trance-like state, following the rhythm of your unwavering surroundings. The person wearing that stupid backpack in front of you has moved further up in footsteps. In this state, you were able to start remembering little bits of what happened to get you here. Break up. It was messy. Heart break. Computer. Hotline. Ad. Click. Healing Camp. Right... That makes sense. Annoyed with yourself, you snap out of your thoughts to realize that you were merely a mile from the first campsite. You bring your eyes off the path and to your surroundings. The person wearing that stupid backpack in front of you has moved further up in the group and the camp guide, Greg, was in front of you now. You practically gag at the stench of skunk and b.o. radiating from him. Mildly sick to your stomach, you look at the trees to hopefully distract yourself from your discomfort. On either side of you stands a thick wall of pine trees with even thicker brush up to your chest. Anything could be in there and you would have no idea. Ahead of you, above stinky Greg, you could see a mountain rising in the near distance. The sun reflecting from the snowy peaks was almost blinding so you look back to the path. The dry brown pine needles work with the small stones under your feet to make a crunching sound not unlike the sound of someone walking up a gravel driveway.

   Break up... Right, your partner of 3 years broke it off with you last week. It was messy. What about it? Heart break. Understandable, you loved them. Computer? Hotline? Ad.. Click. Healing Camp. That's where you are right now. On a backpacking expedition to help heal and find yourself. Do you really want to find yourself? Of course you do. You want to know who you are and who you can truly be as yourself. Before you know it, you're at the campsite and being instructed to set up your personal tent as well as gather firewood. Exhausted from the long walk, you toss your backpack onto the ground where your tent was going to go and lay down, using it as your pillow. You close your eyes to shield them from the sun and an image of a tall man with a face as blank as marble flashes in your vision. You sit bolt upright and look around, confused as to what just happened. Pretty used to random visual hallucinations, you write it off as that and close your eyes again, lying back on your pack once more.