What Is Love?

Chapter Four

Danny Dare

I did my best not to think about him... it... Whatever the hell that thing was. It gave me chills every time I blinked - every time I closed my eyes - he was there, staring at me with no eyes of his own.

I didn't tell anyone what I'd seen. Who would believe me anyway? I'd probably be in the nut house faster than you could say Quidditch if I tried voicing my sighting. I tried reasoning with myself over and over - what I'd seen must have been my imagination, right? Things like that didn't exist in the real world... did they?

'Apparently they do,' I thought sourly. My brain was too smart for its own good, unfortunately, and it knew I hadn't been imagining it.

That night after I'd seen it, I fired up my laptop and typed into the search engine, 'tall, pale, and faceless.' Surely if it was real, there'd be something about him on the Internet. I clicked on the first link that came up, "Slenderbloggins."

'The Slender Man - A mythical creature and the subject of this blog. While he is covered more in-depth in the posts, he can be quickly described as a tall, slender, faceless man dressed in a business suit. He is often depicted with multiple branchlike arms or tentacles.' It felt like my eyes must have been bugging out of my face as I read this. Quickly I scanned the rest of the page, reading something about Operator Symbols and proxies and other things I didn't understand.

Holy crap... It's him.

Panicking slightly and with shaking hands, I went back to the search engine and typed in, "the slender man," and hit enter. Again I just clicked on the first site on the list, "Slender Man - The Slender Man Wiki," and scrolled down to basic description.

'In almost every description Slenderman's basic attributes will vary greatly, however several basic traits are typical of his behavior. He is shown to behave in a very passive aggressive manner, stalking targets for years at a time, torturing his target mentally for various unknown reasons. He is rarely ever shown in a benevolent light and is typically shown as a malevolent force. This behavioral pattern has an uncertain reasoning behind it, and exactly why he behaves in such a way has yet to be fully ascertained,' it read.

I sat there for a moment, taking it in. This was too freaky - it was wrong, and it was scary, and it was so far over my head that I felt like a child again.

So apparently I was being stalked by the Slender man... Fantastic.

Now what was I to do? It was obvious to me that this sick bastard got some sadistic pleasure out of mentally torturing his victims, but a part of me wanted to make sure that he wouldn't get that pleasure from me... The other part of me was scared shitless.

'Suck it up Danny,' I told myself. 'You can do this.' I took a deep breath. I wasn't going to let this creeper get under my skin - that's what he wanted - and he had another thing coming for him.

I surprised myself with a smile.

Nobody messes with Danny Dare.

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A/N: My little allusion to Harry Potter made me giggle for some reason. I dunno, I guess I'm just a nerd like that. I gotta say it though so the copyright ninjas don't descend upon me.

I don't own Quidditch; it is a pretty freaken awesome game created by a freaken awesome author, J. K. Rolling. "Faster than you can say Quidditch" was said by Madam Hooch in the first movie, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I don't remember if she said it in the book too. It's been too long since I read it ^^

Also, the "Slenderbloggins" is not mine. It actually is the first thing that pops up when you type in "tall pale and faceless' in Google. The URL is below if you want it.

http://slenderbloggins.wordpress.com/glossary/

The second website - also not mine. First thing that popped up on Google when I typed in "the slender man." The URL is below ;)

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Slender_Man