I'm in the woods, five miles from my house. Nothing but a backpack with some chips in it, a flashlight and my leather jacket. And a chop stick. Dad's right, I'm useless. But I had to get out of there. It wasn't safe anymore. Not that it was ever safe between Mom's bouts of rage and Dad's constant drunkenness. I heard Dad slam the front door about an hour ago. About forty-five minutes ago I heard him slap my mother. Nothing different. Thirty minutes ago something new happened. Dad started looking for his gun, shouting about how he was going to end the little whelp. It's just me, him, and mom. And he doesn't call Mom a whelp. Twenty-five minutes ago I panicked and packed a bag with as much food as I have in my room, amounting to a bag of chips. Twenty-three minutes ago I grabbed the flashlight I had swiped from the pantry a few weeks ago. Twenty-two minutes ago I threw on my leather jacket. Twenty-minutes ago I look for some kind of weapon, just in case Daddy dearest caught up with me. Sixteen minutes ago I threw the window open, giving up on the weapon idea. Fifteen minutes ago Dad was outside my room jiggling the locked handle. A few seconds after that I'm grabbing the closest thing I think resembles a weapon, specifically a chopstick I had put in a pencil sharpener when I was bored. Fourteen minutes ago I was climbing out the window, stealing the car, and driving two miles before crashing, and starting to run. A minute ago I heard a small sound behind me. My mind filled with thoughts of wolves tearing me to shreds. But I'm being paranoid. It's probably just a raccoon or something. Though a raccoon could easily take down someone a skinny as me. I keep walking, deeper into the woods and hopefully farther from my father. And then I hear a groan. I panic. Instinct has me hold my pathetic excuse of a weapon in front of me a I scan the tree line for the maker of the noise. And then I look up. Above me is something even more frightening than my alcoholic father. A woman, maybe twenty two, was on the tree branch. Well, in a sense. The branch was through her stomach, extending a good five feet from her body. The face, now pale, held an expression of pure terror. I begin walking backward slowly, unable to pull my gaze from the corpse of this woman. Horrified, yet somewhat impressed in spite of myself. The strength and skill it must have taken to commit such a brutal act. And then I feel a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't do it Dad!" I scream, turning to face what I expected to be my father's shotgun. Instead I find myself staring at something that should have filled me with a much worse feeling of dread. The creature in front of me was a giant, seven feet tall, dressed in a black suit and tie. But it was so skinny, almost indiscernible from the tree branch the woman was impaled with, aside from the suit and the face. Well, the head anyway. Where the face should have been was a void. The suggestion of a nose and eyes were there, but there were no features. Just whiteness. I could tell I was supposed to be terrified of it, but I wasn't. It's hand on my shoulder was somewhat comforting, as opposed to the threat it was meant to be. The creature tilted it's head to the side slightly, showing it's confusion at my reaction. I simply stared at the face, or lack of it, smiling.
"I'm Ronan." I say, extending my hand to the confused being in front of me. A smile seems to spread across the featureless surface of its face as it takes my hand in its.
"Slender." It hisses.
And then I feel a jolt in my back. Thunder rumbles across the sky. No, not thunder. A gun shot. The jolt knocks the flashlight out of my hand, shattering it on a rock below us. I expect to be dead. At the very least I expect it to be dark. But I'm not. And it isn't. I can see as if it were day time. I look behind me and see, crystal clear, my dad. My dad holding a smoking shotgun. My dad staring at me as if I were a monster. And then I look down at the shattered glass from the flashlight, and I understand why. I see a tiny reflection of a featureless face, with hints of eyes and a nose on a white head. I see the head connected to a body dressed in a black leather jacket and torn jeans. Behind the reflection of this beast is the first, Slender. I look back at my astonished father, and then at Slender. Four shadowy tendrils spread from his back.
"How do I do that?" I ask him.
"Just try and spread them out, son." Slender's snake-like voice replies.
"Son?" I say with a grin, or what would be if I had a mouth. "I like that."
I focus and two tentacles like my new fathers extend from my back. My old father fires two more shots, one at me, and one at Slender. No. He didn't fire at Slender. He fired at Dad. But Dad wasn't there anymore. He had somehow shown up on the other side of me. And all I had to do was lean towards him a little for the bullet to whiz past harmlessly.
"Now son, it's time for you to learn the family business." Dad said with subtle excitement. I could tell he'd been lonely,guarding his woods, his home from intruders all by himself, and now he had me.
At that he appeared in front of the man with the gun, knocking the weapon out of his hands. I tried to follow his lead, but simply couldn't appear by his side. So I walked over, the pointed bit of wood I had thought to be so
pathetic before in my hand. I know what to do before Dad says a word. My tendrils reach out and grab the man's arms then lift him into the air. I eye a tree that has the perfect branch. Pointy, slim, and right where others will find it. And then I shove the chop stick into his stomach. The man's eyes widen and he screams in pain. But it's only for a second until the chopstick exits his stomach and enters his throat. Then I throw the man below the handy work of my dad, and turn to him to see if he approved. Dad doesn't say a word, and he doesn't need to. I can see it in that featureless face of his. He's never been more proud.
