Guilty

   "The first time I'd seen it was when I was about five years old, during autumn. My family had just moved into a new home near a thick forest, far away from the city. We still live there to this day. My parents were busy unpacking, and since I was just a little kid and couldn't help, they told me to go explore the forest a bit, alone. Come to think of it, it was pretty irresponsible of them.

Either way, I went off, and actually enjoyed myself. I remember how I used to play pretend a lot at that age, and pretended I was the guardian of the forest. Unfortunately for me, that day, I went much further into the woods than my parents had recommended. I eventually got completely lost. The sun was already going down when I realized I was hungry and wanted to see my parents again. Afraid and alone, I wandered around aimlessly amidst the trees, unsure of which direction I'd come from. At dusk, I nestled up near a tree, and cried for a while, before dozing off. I could've slept for ten minutes or an hour, but when I woke up, it was already fully dark out. I could hardly see anything, but I felt an ominous presence. I remember looking up and seeing a frightening, tall figure. Just remembering that thing again now makes me shiver, but at that time I was hardly even fazed, for some reason. Maybe because I couldn't see its features very well in the darkness. I remember having a sort of "conversation" with it, but I can't remember how exactly or what about. The last thing I can recall happened that night was when the being held out its hand to me.

The next morning, I woke up in my bed in my new room. My parents explained that they'd found me asleep after hours of searching in the woods, and that they had been worried sick and were happy to have found me in the end. I think I told them about my strange encounter, but they'd told me it was just a nightmare. That's why I've brushed off that memory as nothing but a dream, until now, ten years later.

This is my story.

It was in the summer, at night. I was playing truth or dare with some friends and my seven-year-old little brother, at my house, outside, near the firepit. At first, we would only dare each other petty things, but soon enough, the game got more intense. At one point, my brother, Matthew, got dared to go into the woods and stay there for an hour to see if the monster he'd claimed lived there really existed.

"What? He's seven years old, for crap's sake, you can't be serious," I said.

"I can do it," said Matt, determined. "I'm not a scaredy-cat!" I sighed. He was always so quick to want to prove himself to my friends.

"Like I'd ever let you. Mom would kill me if I did," I said. She would never let him go out in the woods that late.

"Hey, I was only joking. Of course he couldn't go in there," piped up Paul, the one who'd dared Matt. "Unless... he wasn't alone..." He smirked, eyeing me intently.

"No way. There's no way in hell I'm going with him," I affirmed, but Paul continued to smirk, and my two other friends joined in. I finally gave in. "Fine! I'll go." They all cheered. I glared at them. "But only for one hour," I told them.

"Sure," replied Ashley. They all seemed excited for some reason, maybe to see my mother chastise me later on. Either way, I sighed, getting up.

"I'll show you all that he exists!" declared Matt. I rolled my eyes. He'd been spending a hell of a lot of time in those woods, and had been claiming, for quite a while by now, that he'd seen sinister messages written a bit everywhere throughout it. He'd told my friends and his own classmates at school, but no one believed him. He seemed excited to finally be able to prove them wrong.

Matthew and I left, and ventured into the woodland. We talked casually about ordinary things, as per usual, until Matthew stopped, grinning.

"Look!" He exclaimed, and pointed eagerly at a certain tree. "I told you I wasn't lying!" I flashed the beam of my flashlight onto it, to discover a message on a paper stuck to the trunk. It read, "Always Watches No Eyes" and in between those two phrases was drawn a representation of a face with Xs for eyes. I bit my lip, examining it. It could've perfectly been some idiot teenagers playing a prank, but for some reason, the message made me quite uneasy.

"Matt, maybe we should head back... I have a bad feeling about this..." I suggested.

"Oh, come on! You haven't even seen the best of it." He replied, grinning and unafraid. "There are more pages. If we get lucky, we could even see him!"

I frowned. "Who?"

"The Slender man," he replied happily. "He even remembers your name from when you talked to him ten years ago. He said he misses you." I began to grow more and more worried. What was he talking about?

"This really isn't a good idea, Matthew. I'm sure Mom wouldn't want us out this late..." I told him.

"And what about the dare? It hasn't even been an hour yet, probably," he insisted.

"...Fine. Show me the rest," I replied, sighing.

"Yay!" he cheered. "But first, take a picture of the page. To have proof." Hesitant, I fished out my phone and snapped a photo of the drawing and its caption.

"Happy?" I asked, still worried about my little brother's strange behaviour. He nodded, before dragging me even further into the forest.

We found more and more pages, and the drawings on them grew more and more unsettling. They depicted an unnaturally tall creature, resembling a man, but with no distinguishable face features. The others had no longer unsettling, but even menacing messages. Yet Matthew wasn't disconcerted in the least.

"Matt, we really should go back. We've been here for over an hour an a half... We're gonna get lost..." I said.

My little brother looked up at me, about to answer, when suddenly his eyes widened, looking as if he'd seen a ghost. He swiftly pulled me behind a bush, looking terrified.

"What is it?"

"Shh!!" He whispered. "We've gone too far, he's mad now, oh no, no, no..." He muttered more unintelligible speech, his head in his hands. I had no idea who he was talking about. "It couldn't be the monster, could it...?" I thought.

I suddenly heard a low growl from behind. I gasped. Matthew held my hand tightly, tears in his eyes. It then appeared in front of us.

The figure was tall and slender, I remember it being dressed in a black suit with a red tie. It had no face. No mouth, no eyes, no nose, nothing. Yet it still felt as if it was staring us down with a cold glare.

It was the monster from my dream.

I just can't get it out of my head... The way that it just took him and completely ripped him limb... From limb..."

"I think we've heard enough." The man stood up, beginning to walk away with his clipboard, feeling as if he'd wasted his time.

"NO! Please, I swear I'm telling the truth!! I DIDN'T DO IT!!"