Survive him, Thrive with him.

Chapter four

"Why won't you let me come over?" Jacob whines from over the phone.

"Because I have to lose myself in my art in order to do anything. You know this, yet you like to mess it up." I state, taking my new painting off the easel, a sunset on the ocean.

"That's what friends do." He replies.

"Well, it may be funny to you, but that is the only way I can make art. If you kept coming over every time, I wouldn't make a thing." I remind him. Jacob falls silent and I put the phone on speaker, walking into the kitchen to wash off my hands from the paint.

"Sorry." He mumbles and I dry my hands off, walking over and picking the phone up again.

"It's okay. Just remember that." I say, taking the phone with me into my room to change clothes.

"Hey, did you listen to the news?" He asks.

"No, why? What happened?" I ask back.

"A girl has gone missing for a few days now. You know who I suspect." Jacob muses.

"The Slender man?" I ask, rolling my eyes.

"He is real! I know he is! A couple of my friends want to go searching through the woods to see if we can find him." He excitedly explains.

"If people go missing, do you ever wonder that maybe they go missing because something kidnaps them? Maybe animals, maybe an old man, or even a strange cat lady. I don't think you should go searching for a creature thing that you don't even know exists." I argue.

"He has to exist. How do you think his legacy started?" Jacob asks.

"Someone with a wild imagination, maybe a vivid nightmare or a bad camping trip." I mutter.

"No, it's because someone got away from him, alive, and told his story, with people like you who deny the truth to listen." Jacob corrects.

"I still don't believe you." I reply, pulling off the plaid and replacing it with a brown t-shirt.

"How about this. You come with us to search and stay as our guard, you're good with animals, right? Anyways, as we go through the search, if we see him, I can tell you I told you so and we all freak run back home." He bargains poorly.

"I am not going into a random forest, at night, to see which one of us is correct." I object, taking out the pony tail and brushing my hair into a part.

"Fine. Then we'll just go alone, in the dark, with nothing to protect ourselves." He drones.

"Jacob, you know very well that I am weak and wouldn't be able to protect you more than you could protect yourselves." I snap, taking the phone back out into the living room to see how my paintings were doing.

"But we would have one more, and that adds to our strength. Besides, don't you want to try and prove you're correct by going with us?" Jacob asks.

"No, I don't. I don't have the desire to prove my statement, unlike you." I say, tempted to poke my pieces. The black square stares at me with mystery, a small triangle cut into the middle of the top.

"Wait. Jacob, what does the Slender man even look like?" I ask.

"Abnormally tall, white skin, black suit. Why?" Jacob asks.

"And his face?" I ask.

"He doesn't have one."

"Oh, just another strange drawing someone decided to turn into a monster." I comment.

"No it's not! He is real!" Jacob argues.

"I'm coming with you." I announce.

"What? Really?"

"Yes. I don't trust you guys out there alone. And besides..." I pick up the painting with the black rectangle, an image pouring out of my mind, it's original plan for the black showing and creating a man.

"Something in me wants me to go with."

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