88

88: The One Who Lives Through Fear Itself

Aside from being a busy, straight-A college student, a good kid and family member, and an honest and genuine friend, 88 was a researcher of the sorts in their spare time. The best hobby in the world, they thought. Perfect for a soul who recharged in the best way by being left alone to their own devices.

Their topic of study was supernatural in nature and focused on an eldritch creature sort of Cthulian in nature. A particular entity that had a knack for causing pain and instilling fear into the hearts of mortal men. It was known throughout different countries all over the world and because of this was known by many names. 88 had speculated that the creature had no particular gender even though it was commonly represented as male. His most prominent name: Slenderman.

Over the course of 6 long years, they drew the wrong attention to themselves due to the nature of the investigation, and while at their lowest boiling point suffered an infestation of the mind, body, and spirit. It was a similar process to possession but unique in the sense that it was a fragment of the beings own energy, rather than the being itself, which was installed into a human vessel for the purpose of creating a unique personality that would eventually manifest as its own entity. A sub-entity, bound with its host's soul and body. Humans were wonderful for this purpose. He saw them as pissant minnows, feeble enough to be overridden with the proper energy and force. Humans. Already embedded in a part of a greater society. Perfect for spreading the virus of Fear Itself. This was the stuff that wrote history. The process was known as proxification.

88 knew that they had pissed off the very thing that intrigued them, and knew where their story was headed. However, an odd thing happened. While ol' Slendy was doing his dirty work, a process that usually took a few seconds and was followed by a convenient blackout and severe memory loss of the past few days, he found his influence barred and shoved out of the unsuspecting mind of 88. The gravity of this was astounding. The entity was thereby quite impressed and deemed this human sanctioned by tapping a finger between 88's brows. He vanished without further warning. Typical. But why was 88 left unscathed?

88 figured his disappearance was not so typical after all. They were not suffering the bothersome effects of Sigma radiation, nor had memory loss set in. The slim forboding figure and his facelessness were crystal clear in their mind.

As 88 was left alone by the being, unaffected, they had time to discover just how unique this all was. They saw this entity from time to time over the course of their regular daily life. In the background of nearly everything. They were on guard, suspecting that man of...something. Anything. But to 88's utter confusion, the faceless remained unusually neutral. Was he worried about something or did he just really like 88? Both of these assumptions were dangerous and highly unlikely.

Time passed. Days. Weeks. Months.

88 had figured out that the being known as Slenderman had indeed attempted creating a proxy out of them, but for some reason, either changed his mind, or failed. Yet both of those suspicions were highly improbable and quite stupid.

They did their research. They re-watched countless videos of people who had documented the being out of paranoia. Odd, 88 thought. They all fell into the seemingly obsessive habit of recording themselves, constantly. Usual. Usual for them. Why not 88? Slenderman was literally sighted by 88 at least 4 times a week if not more. They were not affected in this manner. Why in the hell would such an entity give a petty human such a lengthy leash on which to roam?

One thing was comforting though. Like many others, 88 sought answers desperately.

Soon enough the strange benefits of the original visitation of this odd being made itself manifest when 88 was making a meal early in the morning for breakfast. They were drained of energy and suddenly fell limp, similar to a fit of narcolepsy. Instead of falling unconscious 88 realized that they were still awake and playing spectator through vision that belonged to someone else. They quickly realized who's vision they were using when they found themselves looking through their own window and gazing upon themselves amidst a scattered mess of cereal and milk. A strange view from the 3rd person. Now, anybody can look through a fucking window. 88 knew that. It's a fucking window.