Crimson

Meeting Slenderman's Daughter

Pretending I couldn’t see was more difficult than not being able to see in itself, I was more graceful than I’d been, I was more alert, I was quicker and I was much, much more violent. It had been three full days since I relapsed, and the taste still zinged through my blood. I had come home dripping in red, leaving smears across furniture and wallpaper. I could smell Fred upstairs, sleeping. I had showered, I had burned the blood stained work clothes.

I had seen Anna watching me the next day, following me to work and standing at the very corner of the room as I pretended I was reading the bumps on the page, instead of the written words on the contract. She had disappeared on my lunch break and only then could I focus.

‘Jack.’ Frederique snapped her fingers in front of my face and I snapped my eyes up to her. ‘Have you even been listening?’ Her hands rested on her hips, her voice was soft and amused and her hand slid into mine.

I gave a half-hearted smile. ‘Just a little preoccupied.’

‘Work?’

I nodded.

Frederique took a deep calming breath in through her nose and out slowly through her mouth. ‘I was saying I have something really important to tell you.’

The air shifted and from the corners of my eye I saw the red tendrils of fear gathering and when they disappeared, Anna was standing there, hidden in the shadows and watching me.

‘Hold that thought.’ I murmured. I turned to face Anna, looking directly into her face before walking out of the house and I could feel the air turn cold as red filled my vision. Anna was already behind the shed on the opposite side of the garden when I got there.

‘Anna, what are you doing here?’ I snapped, agitated, running my fingers through my hair quickly and ignoring the slight sound of breaking hair as I pulled through and out of knots.

‘I was checking if you were ok.’ Anna didn’t even hesitate to reveal her mouth and I wondered what had changed, when that had changed. ‘You ran out pretty quickly after you ate that woman.’

Anna spoke as if cannibalism was as mundane as the weather, and I was surprised before remembering who she was, and then remembering who I had once been, before I’d ever seen Frederique, before I became so damn conflicted. ‘That was a lapse of control, a mistake. It won’t happen again, Anna.’

She shrugged. ‘Yeah it will. You know it will as well as I do.’ She bent beside me, leaning to whisper into my ear quietly. ‘You’ll do it again soon, as soon as your vision starts to flicker, as soon as you feel yourself weakening you will kill again. You’ve felt what it is to be mortal, and I know you don’t want to go back.’ She leant back again, the delicious sent of her blood disappearing as she did so and I took in a sharp breath, feeling dizzy.

‘No.’ I muttered. ‘That won’t be happening.’

‘That’s not why I’m here though.’ Anna said quickly, she stood straighter, the streams of blackness protruding from her back curling and uncurling rapidly and her skin began bubbling very slightly over the dips where her eyes should be, blood beaded in the pores there, oozing from her eyes and trickling down her cheeks and I realised she was crying.

She said nothing for a bit and I bit my lip. ‘Anna, why are you here?’

She looked at me and bent again in front of me. ‘I don’t know why you’d really care, or really even know if I didn’t come today, but I’m here to say goodbye.’

I blinked. ‘Goodbye? I already said goodbye, you said goodbye, years ago and it hasn’t really done anything.’

‘Well, I won’t be coming back this time. If you see Slenderman again, it won’t be Anna.’