I've been trying really hard to make some friends but so far only Leah will talk to me. But I think the other girls don't want her to because they've been making fun of her hanging with me even though it's usually only for a few minutes. Leah says that it doesn't matter and that she doesn't care what they say, but I hate seeing her get bullied because she's trying to be nice to me. I feel like I'm ruining her life at school.

The girls in my class and some of the older girls too have been calling me a dyke. I don't really know why they are because I looked it up in the dictionary and it said it was a levee or something and even asked Simon but he sort of stammered and said I didn't need to know until I was older. They said I looked like one because of my short hair and baggy clothes, so I'm guessing it's supposed to be bad. Does anyone know what it's supposed to mean?

They've also been making sure I can't sit with them during lunch and if I have to partner up with anyone they usually act like it's the worst thing in the world. It's been hard because it looks like the other kids just don't want me to be there. I think Leah is just nice to me because she feels bad for me. I've been bullied before- back before I met Rachel kids pushed me around because I was really shy and awkward. Now I speak my mind and act a little strange because of everything I went through and this has gotten me bullied even more than when I was quiet. It's weird how it's working out.

Simon still wants me to see a therapist and I still don't want to. He's getting worried because he knows it's been hard for me and he has no idea what to do because he's never had a kid to take care of before. I feel bad for suddenly living with him and making him have to do a lot more work, but I know there's no where else I can go.

I just have been feeling lonely and kind of sad for the past week. I think I'm getting depressed or something but I don't know. I keep having flashes but they aren't as bad as when I first got put into school. I've been going out and hanging around parks and swinging because I finish my homework really fast. I always try looking for him when I'm there or near the woods. I expect to see a tall, faceless man suddenly appear and for the nightmare to start all over again but so far I haven't even felt anything to something being not normal. I guess maybe he really has left me alone.

I just need something to keep me from thinking because then I want to do stupid things that would get me or Simon hurt.

Friends

I've been trying to make friends at school but it's been really hard. I keep having these flashes of being with Redlight and the others when people come near and try to talk to me. Every time it happens I act strange and usually scare the other students off. All the teachers and the principle know that I went through something because Simon told them, but none of the kids do and it's becoming really hard. They're already avoiding me and only talking to me if they have to.

I wonder if I'll ever make any friends or if I'll have to be alone because of the things I have done and seen.

There is one girl who keeps coming back and trying to make friends and I've been trying to act as normal as I can, but it's hard. She's smart enough to know that something is wrong and that I'm hurting but she's nice enough not to be nosy and ask. Her name is Leah. She's really pretty and funny and has a lot of friends and I wish I could be just like her. She's a lot better than Rachel was to me.

The other day some of the boys made fun of my short hair because I basically got a pixie cut and apparently I look like a boy. It was weird because I didn't want to cry- I've had to take worse insults than that before- but I did want to scream at them and beat them up. I think I got a bad temper and I don't want anything to happen anyone.

Simon says I could always go and see a Therapist but I don't want to. There's no way they could understand what I've gone through and make me feel better. There's just no way at all.

And Kay, if you're reading this, I want to let you know that Mom wouldn't want you acting like this at all. She would want you to be happy and keep living for her...if she really is dead. Dad would probably roll his eyes and tell you to stop being a baby. So please, please, stop and think about what you're doing.

Thanks to everyone who has been giving me nice comments, it really does make me smile that you guys care.

School

Simon and I have been talking over the last few days that I've stayed with him and I asked him to put me in school. I need something to take my mind off of what just happened and he agreed only if I promised to tell him if anything strange started happening again. I did and so I had my first day today.

It was weird being in school again. There were so many kids around me and I kept having these flashbacks to when I was stuck in the warehouse with all the other proxies, except they were usually older than me. Now I was back in a place where there were people around my age everywhere. The adults in charge weren't speaking in code or clawing at their faces, they were actually trying to help and teach kids. They cared. I got so used to everyone not caring about me and just having to take care of myself.

The day after I made my last post Simon took me out to get whatever I wanted. I know he's trying to make the situation less bad but it's really hard. I'm happy he's trying though. I ended up getting my hair cut very short because in the months that I had been staying with the others it had gotten tangled and gross from all the dirt. I also lost a lot of weight, or that's what Simon says, so he's been making sure I eat three meals a day. I'm not really sure how much I ate while I stayed with the proxies. I think I got all my food myself.

But I guess school was okay. I had to take a few tests to see if I could go into the sixth grade since I missed so much of fifth grade, but I passed them. So now I'm starting Middle School. Mom and Dad would be proud.

Free

In the beginning there was me and Mom.

In the middle there was me and Redlight.

By the end there is me and Simon.

There was always a missing person in all of this. That person was Dad- Tony. I miss him, I really do. Even though everything that happened was just…/bad/ he still came back for me. He, Mom and Simon came for me. I guess I should explain because so much has happened.

Yesterday I sent a message to Mom and Dad. I remember I put down a time and place for them to meet me and I also remember feeling scared and nervous. I didn’t really go crazy like I wrote. I sort of…pretended it. When I tried to kill myself and saw Mom and Dad reaching for me I snapped out of it. Redlight’s hold on me must have been broken on my end or something because I couldn’t feel his influence anymore, a voice in the back of my head telling me to do things to prepare for him. There was still something there, something dark and tangled in my mind. I think it was Him. That thing I called Dad for a while.

I had to pretend to be under Redlight’s control still though so I wrote that entry so he wouldn’t lock me up when he figured out I had tried to kill myself. He actually believed my lie which still surprises me because I thought it would never work. But the lie brought him back to me after being away for a long time.

The next day Redlight took me and a few things in a bag and we went to the place I told Mom, Dad and Simon to meet me. The place we stopped was a big clearing in the middle of the woods. There was a tree stump near the middle, I remember, and Redlight told me to go sit on it and wait for my parents and the policeman. I don’t know how long I was there, but it must have been a while because my legs fell asleep. After a while though I finally heard Mom and Dad. Dad more because he was talking loudly about how he hates coming in the woods and Mom was just saying a few things during his pauses.

I guess they saw me a few moments later because Dad stopped talking. I couldn’t turn to look at them; I was staring at Redlight who motioned for me to stay quiet. At the time I got really scared, I didn’t know what to do because he was taking out some things from the bag and he always has horrible things with him. It turns out it was two weird guns, I think one was a stun gun. Even though he had told me to stay quiet and not move before we got to the clearing I couldn’t help but turn when he suddenly shot a dart out and hit Dad in the neck.  He only got a few steps and then he fell over. Redlight started laughing but then Simon pointed a gun at him.  But before he could do anything, he froze up, and I saw these little cords out of his chest.  Mom was screaming, and Redlight was just laughing as he reloaded, then shot her too.

I remember wanting to cry when I saw Mom hit the ground and see her body twitch from the electrical blasts. I was so scared because suddenly it was just me and Redlight and he had the most horrible smile on his face that stretched the bits of tree I could see slivering around on his head and one of his eyeballs was hanging loose out of the socket. The last thing he brought out of the bag was a pipe and he told me to hold it for him. He went over to Dad and grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up to make him look at me. The both of them were staring and Redlight told me to “have at it”.

He wanted me to hit Dad with the pipe over and over until he died. I know that’s what he wanted. And Dad couldn’t do anything, the dart must have had some bad drug or something in it because his fingers were able to clench but the rest of him was staying still.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t keep fooling Redlight anymore because I couldn’t kill my /Dad/!

I remember walking up to them not knowing what was going to happen, just scared of what was going to happen to me. For the first time in months I realized there were no more side options I could take to live, I only had one and I’d probably die. The thought of actually being /dead/ scared me so bad my hands started to shake. I wondered if it would hurt, if it would take long, if I would go to Heaven after killing so many people, if Hell was as scary as I thought it was…

And then he kept screaming at me to do it and I hit Redlight in the face with the pipe instead of Dad. It cut his face and while it bleed a tree root started pushing through and wrapping around his eye- I wanted to puke or scream, but before I could Redlight got really, really angry. Simon told me he said, “You miserable little punk” or something, but I didn’t hear anything except TV static because I had broken free of Him. Of Slenderman. I did it, I got free because I wouldn’t obey him and Redlight, and I was me again.

That was when Redlight suddenly picked me up, yanking the pipe out of my hands, and threw me to the ground. It hurt so bad, I think I landed on a rock, but he wouldn’t let me get up. He just grabbed my hoodie and made me look at him. His face was so ugly and his skin was /moving/ from the tree parts trying to grow out of him. That was when I was able to scream.

It hurt. Everything hurt because he was killing me from the inside. He was trying to force me out of my own body after I had finally gotten it back for myself and it /burned/. I was so sure I had somehow caught fire but I couldn’t move away at all. And all I could do was cry and scream for someone to help me because it all /hurt/.

Mom shot Redlight in the back.

All of a sudden Redlight had frozen with a shocked look and let me go. He made a few watery noises and stumbled away. That’s when I saw Mom standing there with Simon’s gun, hands still shaking from the effects of the tazer. We made eye contact and I promise a million words were able to be said without actually saying them. She loved me, she’d do anything for me, and she’d never stop until I was safe.

Slenderman appeared behind her and all I could do was stare and gasp. I didn’t even get to warn her. He had come when Redlight fell to the side, probably knew that one of his own important people was dying. He was angry, that I know for sure. Even though I had broken free, there was this noise in my head like a siren. It hurt to hear and even though I reached up to cover my ears and curl into a ball I saw what happened next so clearly. Slenderman cut off the arm holding the gun from the elbow down with one of the many tentacles slashing through the air. Mom started screaming and holding her injured arm and she fell to her knees.

Beside me I turned in time to get an even worse sight: the tree had finally caught up to Redlight. It was growing /out of him/ from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, every inch of his body. Blood was being pushed out of him from the inside violently, leaking out and covering the ground. Redlight was dead. He was actually dead and he wouldn't be able to come back.

I think I might have been screaming but I’m not sure. Everything was happening so fast and I was suddenly pulled to my feet by Dad. He had managed to get up and over to me even though he was moving slowly like he was half asleep.

Dad pulled me over to Simon, shoved me into his arms while Mom somehow got up and came over as well. There was so much blood and everyone was crying and Slenderman was so angry and that tree was just /taking over/ Redlight.

They told him to take me away. They told him to take me and not look back, to get me away from Him. Mom looked him in the eyes and made him promise to take care of me and keep me safe. Simon did. Dad pulled me into a hug and told me over and over that he loved me and that no matter what I was always gonna be his daughter. Mom kissed me on the forehead before Dad picked me up and put me in Simon’s arms.

And he took me away. I screamed and kicked and clawed and tried to go back to them because they were /going to die/ if we just left them there but he wouldn’t let me go.

The last thing I saw was Dad picking up Simon’s gun, pulling it out of my Mom’s cut off arm, his other arm pulling Mom in and holding her up while she held her bloody stump, and pointing the gun at Slenderman.

He was laughing the entire time he shot at him even though he knew it wouldn’t work. He was laughing and calling him names, telling him to just try and kill him.

The trees around the clearing caught on fire and I couldn’t see anything else.

Simon told me I passed out when the fire started, which I guess I did because I don’t remember him driving me to the police station. I do remember someone asking me what happened, and sounding surprised because I was alive. I think everyone thought I was dead. Simon did most of the work after the forest. He made sure no one really bothered me. Apparently I’ll be staying with him now because the only known relatives in my family other than my parents, Dad’s parents, mysteriously died the same day I was found. Their house caught on fire due to some sort of power surge. That’s what the police say anyway.

I am writing this on Simon’s computer. He’s standing behind me and correcting my grammar while making a list of things an eleven year old girl would need to live with him.

For the first time in a long time I know how to feel. I am sad. I am sad and crying while I write this because Mom and Dad were left behind and I couldn’t do anything. The police said they didn’t find any bodies in the clearing, just a giant tree which they had never seen before.

I am praying for the first time in months to God that my parents are alive and got away. I just want my Mommy and Daddy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted and that’s all I never got. I just want my family back and happy so we can do normal things and make friends and grow up together. I want to go to the movies with Dad and listen to him complain about how lame it is, I want to bake a cake with my Mom one more time, I want to go to bed knowing that everything is going to be okay because Mom and Dad are there and they will never let anything bad happen to me.

It’s all I want. It’s all I want. Please, please, it’s all I want.

11:59

bad girl bad girl bad girl killing yourself isn't the answer bad bad bad bad bad bad good?

look at all of them all of the children morningstar rika zero Redlight. Proper grammar proper spelling proper everything now we are not some idiot who has never gone to school. You saw them in the end, didn't you? Slitting your wrists and bleeding out in the bathtub with your family pounding on the door outside trying to get in and stop death.

You saw them.

Mommy and Daddy reaching for you in the darkness. In the end you still see Anthny as your father-it amazes me.

Me. Who am I?

Well, haha, who do you think?

Who has been speaking to Cynthia the whole time, keeping her in line for Him and Redlight? You didn't really think she could handle both presences on her own did you? It's too much for a kid to handle on their own. All the other children get snatched and die so easily but sometimes the lucky few can figure out a coping mechanism.

Cynthia did.

Who am I?

Who am I....hmmmm, well, I guess you can call me Rachel. Or Cynthia. Really it's still her I guess but not her. It's...the Cynthia that Redlight wants. It's the Cynthia that he'll get.

I guess her plan to regain sanity didn't work?

i can't do this anymore. i can't keep dealing with big brother aha, why am i even calling him that anymore, with Redlight. i can't keep feeling these urges to kill my...tony and kidnap mom. i can't let myself be kept by this monster for longer. i can't i can't i can't

there's a voice in the back of my head whispering to me, telling me to hurt other people and calling itself rachel. it's not rachel. it was never rachel. it's me. i think there's something wrong with me, something not even related to my "Daddy". my real dad, the crazy man who apparently stalked my mom, tortured my father figure, and was eventually killed, had issues that Daddy only needed to touch slightly to bring him under his control.

i'm his daughter, so i think i inherited some of those problems.

life is getting to be too much, y'know? and if i die Redlight won't be able to escape the thing that is chasing him, it will be able to trap him in one weak body and kill him. i think this is the best option. i have done nothing but hurt people and lead others to their death and i don't want that anymore.

it's time for me to go. i can do it. there's a bathroom in this place and of course there are plenty of weapons lying around that i can use.

i guess this is goodbye. i've had a good run. i hope the rest of you find a way to help my mom and dad, please.