Mai struggled under the weight of the corpse, her body writhing as she pushed at it. Her mouth opened to scream but it only caused the blood to pour in, gagging her as the torrent seemed to never end. The voices pounded in her skull, yelling at her, whispering to her... tempting her. They promised the fear and pain would disappear. The spoke of a place so full of light and warmth that she would have thought this whole thing a nightmare in comparison.
She tried to resist. She tried to breath even as her face became drenched in crimson liquid and the weight on her torso became too much. The silo never seemed to empty and she let herself fade into the blackness.
"Mai! Mai!" The last thing she felt was the weight being lifted from her chest, her hand lifting as she clutched the page in her fist...
~X-x-X~
It was dark when she opened her eyes, the orbs of spirits she would usually see where strangely absent from her astral plane, and there was no warmth. The comfort of Eugene's presence was nowhere to be found and she had to suppress the shiver the started in her bones when she realised the state she had been in seconds before in the waking world had followed her here.
The taste of copper was strong on her tongue and she retched, emptying what little contents she had in her stomach. With shakey hands, she wiped her mouth, feeling perturbed by the fact that she could even get sick in this realm. She tried her best to focus on the area around her, her eyes adjusting to the darkness enough so that she could make out the familiar outline of the silo in the distance. Her sense drew her forward, her legs moving automatically as she headed towards the reason she was in this horrible version of her astral plane.
There was movement just infront of her and she could make out the faint glow of a spirit, a young girl who looked like she'd run through the woods for days. Her skin smudged with dirt and her lovely summer dress ripped to shreds, barely clinging onto her thin frame. It very well would have fallen off if it hadn't been from the rain that started to beat down to the earth as the heavens opened up.
A small shriek came from the young girl as thunder boom overhead. She raced into the clearing and ran to the silo, which was rust free, and pulled open the latch that had caused Mai, Naru and Monk so much trouble to open. With what must have been from pure adrenaline, the little girl hoisted herself up and into the opening which her body in the present time had fallen out of. The sound of the rain bouncing off the metal echoed through the clearing while Mai stood in the tree line, watching and waiting.
She knew that thing was around… That horrible being without a face.
She could feel it as a shiver raced down her spine and the hair on the back of her neck rose. The smell of rot suddenly invaded her senses as she knew her hold on the plane was slipping. But she needed to see what happened to the little girl. She had to.
There was a screech from inside the silo as thunder boomed through the forest and lightning lit the whole field... And that's when Mai saw it, the Slender Man, tall and imposing on top of the silo, his shadow stretching for miles every time the lightning struck. Long tentacles suddenly plunged through the top of the water tank and a horrifying scream, tortured and frightened echoed suddenly, louder than the thunder and the rain, louder Mai's own horrified scream, before it all went quiet.
She woke with a gasp, the crimson liquid gone but leaving a copper taste in her mouth. Torches shone at her and she winced, her eyes burning from the light and making her head spin.
"Oh thank god you’re ok Mai." Monk's voice was a warm welcome to her as she struggled to sit up, her back cold and sticky and having lain in the blood, which was, oddly, disappearing. The feeling was still there, the phantom feeling of it oozing over her flesh making her skin crawl. But she focused more on the page in her hand, the corpses' grip somehow looser. The vision was still fresh in her mind, haunting her as if the image was burned into her eyelids. Every time she blinked she could see it, the lightning flashing and lighting up the horrible shadow of the Slender Man, his tentacles piercing the silo with ease.
She shook her head, the men pointing their light on it without the need for her to ask them to. The words scribbled on the page made her heart race. 'CAN'T RUN' was sprawled across the page, virtually scratched into the very surface of the worn paper. The tremble in the letters, the horrible image of a shadow, it all made the fear bubble up in her throat again, a horrible chill settling in her gut as she shoved the yellow paper in her pocket.
The wind picked up suddenly and Mai bolt upright, her back tense as she looked around, Monk looked into the forest, his eyes sharp as he started chanting, his Tokkohoshi ready in case he needed to raise a barrier. Naru shifted, his arm nestled around Mai's waist in case he needed to grab her if he showed up. He could feel the violent shivers that racked the brunette's body and he couldn't help but worry whether, once this was all done with, if she would be ok.
"We have to move!" Mai's words were sudden and yet, both males jumped into action, Naru holding onto her as they ran back into the forest, away from the silo and back into the darkness. The trees whipped at them, tugging at their clothes and hair, snaring them easily within the foliage as inhuman screams rent the air around them. They could feel the wind pass through them, so cold it was like sharp knives were dancing across their flesh.
They wanted to question her. Ask her what she had seen in her vision. Ask her why they were running. But they knew, deep down, that she had a better sense on what was going on compared to them. And that it would bode well for them if they listened to her. So if she said run... they'd run.
Time seemed to crawl as the thunder boomed overhead, the smell of rain strong on the wind as they steered clear of any open pathways. Whenever Mai's foot landed on a clear patch of dirt, she would turn them around, retreating from the open space of the natural trail. Her blood ran cold in her veins as she did all she could to avoid being found. The hair on the back of her neck raised drawing on all her mental strength to not give in to her fear.
The fright felt like a disease, clawing at her nerves, tugging at her senses. It plagued her mind with horrifying images of the spirits that had been trapped within the realm of the living, their deformed bodies haunting her mind’s eye as if the images were burned into her eye-lids, flaring to life every time she blinked, imprinting themselves on her psyche.
They only slowed when they had no other choice, coming to a stop before a bring wall. More so, an intersection of crossed walls. It was so oddly placed, so randomly designed... Mai couldn't even fathom why it had been made in the first place.
"What the hell is this?" Monk whispered, shaking his head at the oddity before them. He could feel the wind bounce of the brick and slam into them, like a silent warning to stay away.
"It's a trap." Naru's voice was a cold, a solid reminder of the horror that they could face should they be cornered. He could feel Mai stiffen beside him, her eyes wide and she scanned the red bricks before them, "We should go."
The males were about to move away when they were stopped, "No." They turned to look at Mai, shock evident on their faces as they watched her face shift from fear to determination. "It's here. A page is here. I can feel it. They know it's here and they want me to find it. I'm the only one who can help them.
With a strong step towards the brick walls, Mai grabbed the guys hands and pulled them after her, making sure one walked before her and one after her while she felt out the presence of the page. It was like a spirit was attached to each piece of paper, their strongest, and most likely their last emotions, were imbued to the pages. She could feel the young spirits of the children that had passed with each page she gathered. They guided her, spoke to her. Gave her warnings before anything actually happened.
Because she knew she was reliving their last moments each time she gathered a page. And every time she escaped, the spirits grew stronger. More aware. Closer to freedom...
"Stop!" She hadn't meant to shout, but the pull over her from the spirits was too strong to ignore, she bolted from the middle of the two men, sprinting to the brick wall and tearing the page from its surface. She couldn't help the little grin as she felt another young spirit leave the confines of its nightmares and attach itself to her.
The joy wore off quickly however as she heard both Naru and Monk scream out to her.
She turned, and came face to face with the faceless entity that had hunted her all night...
