Fantasy

I'm hoping this gets out to someone. I doubt it will, but there's always a chance that it could, right? I'm sitting here in what used to be my room as I type this. The TV is on, I have the window open, and the sun is shining. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, no. This isn't my room. This isn't my house. It's all a perfect replica created by him.

I don't remember being stalked. Hell, I don't even remember how or when I got here. I guess the memory loss is bad even after you've been destroyed by him. I say destroyed because I haven't been killed, yet I wouldn't really call what's happening to me "living." Wait, I haven't explained who he is. Though with words like stalk and memory loss, I think you can figure out who he is.

The internet meme. That overplayed bastard. Slender Man.

I know you must be sick of Slender Man stories, but please listen. I believe at one point I fell victim to him. Let me take you back to that day and a few other days as well, I suppose.

One day, I was at home getting ready to go out. I was dressed and about to open the door of my room to leave and next thing I knew, I was in a dark void. The void warped and twisted around me as I stood there, trying to get my bearings. There was no up or down, no left or right.

I was just there in a swirl of colors that made my eyes hurt with how vibrant they were and how fast they were moving. I rubbed my eyes and when they focused, I was back in my room. I threw my door open, expecting to see the hallway I desperately needed. Nausea hit me rather quickly, so I was trying to hurry to the bathroom just in case.

There was nothing there. It wasn't like there was no one in the hall, but rather there was literally nothing there. It was the black void. There was no sound or air, just darkness. It was like what had happened before the colorful terror.

I slammed the door shut and turned to bury my face in a pillow, as I was so confused and afraid. However, when I turned, I saw him. He stood there, towering over me in that idiotic suit, tentacle arms at his sides and head craned downward to stare at me.

"Welcome," he said to me.

He didn't actually speak, however. He has no mouth, after all. Instead, I saw words in the same scratchy, messy font from the notes he sends to those Youtubers. It was silly, cheesy, and dumb...all words I know you're thinking, but it's true.

He displayed that stupid font in front of me, suspended in the air. I swiped my hand across the letters to get them out of my face, but they remained. It was as if the words were being projected by an overhead projector. They remained there and distorted over the contours of my hand.

As I stared at the words, they began to fade and I realized my captor was gone. I had been taken by him and he was holding me hostage or prisoner or whatever he wanted to call me. I sat down in my armchair and looked up at my desk.

I saw that, as in the "real" world, there was my computer. Eagerly, I turned it on and waited for it to boot up. He had left me a means to communicate out! I was going to be free if I could get word out to someone.

I was wrong. I could sign on to AIM, Yahoo, and MSN just fine, but each list was empty. No one was online, not even people who never sign out. I changed my preferences to show people who were offline and everyone on the lists from before WERE offline.

I tried my browser to see if I actually had internet access. My finger twitched on the mouse button as the browser started up. Never had I been so eager to see vapid new stories and flash ads before me.

The homepage loaded and everything was there. News, games, everything. I went to Facebook to see if the homepage was just some catched page. I thought that if Facebook was updating, I'd be good.

Even Facebook loaded perfectly. I could see new statuses and links show up on my news feed, but my status bar was gone. Comment boxes were gone and even the chat bar was missing.

He was allowing me to go online and see life go on, but he wouldn't let me speak to anyone. I slumped back in my chair and watched the news feed update. It scrolled along, showing me what everyone was doing, but I could interact with none of it. What was I going to do? Was I dead? Was I in some other dimension? I had nothing now.

Over time, I began to just live my life again. I watched TV. I went on my usual websites. I enjoyed what I could. I don't know how he was piping all of this in, but he wasn. he would pop in now and then to check on me, too.

One day, he finally "spoke" to me again. He told me I wasn't dead. I was merely his and I wasn't going home, nor was I going to die. He told me I should never have looked into him and that this was all my fault.

From that point on, he started harvesting things from my brain. He was taking fantasies and the things I loved and began to make them real. Whatever I could think up - whatever was on my mind that I used to put myself into a happy place - was fodder for him.

Soon I was going on Pokemon quests. I was fighting in the Battle City tournament. I was flying through space on the Normandy beating up evil aliens. I was kicking ass with Nathan Drake and stealing treasures. I even owned my own successful business. Yet every time, he came and ripped it all to shreds. Each one turned into some bad creepypasta when he showed up.

That Pokemon quest? He was the League Champion when I got to the end. He had no Pokemon at all, though. I sent mine out to try and attack him, but he stabbed each one with a rigid tentacle. I saw my team fall dead to the ground as the world warped and distorted around me.

I was dropped at a Pokemon Center, where everyone's critters were dead and the trainers were all maimed. They screamed out that their Pokemon had turned on them before seizing and dying. They cried so much that many were hyperventilating while others were starting to go mad. The sky turned red and the screams grew louder. Then everything went out like a TV turning off.

In Battle City, he fought me atop the tower on Kaiba's Alcatraz. He had no deck, no Duel Disk...nothing. Every time I played a card, he had one better that he pulled out from anywhere. When I pulled ahead, he destroyed me with cheap moves.

His field would go from empty to full in a mere turn and all hope I had for winning was constantly dashed. Then, as I lost my last Life Point, he destroyed the tower and let us fall into the ocean. I fell, tumbling through the air as debris fell around me.

As I looked up, I could see him slowly descending - standing still - and merely "staring" at me. I hit the water hard and struggled to find the way up. Pieces of the tower knocked into me, sending me around in circles until I opened my eyes and saw the faint light of the surface.

I finally surfaced and looked out to shore, where I saw nothing but destruction. Demented versions of cards ransacked the city. They were so familiar, but looked so demonic I couldn't even begin to fathom any comparisons to describe them. It's as if they were an amalgamation of all that was evil in the world, but I know that makes zero sense.

Buildings fell, explosions went off, and the sounds of screaming were quickly drowned out by piercing laughter that ranged from demonically deep to squeaky and disturbing. Bodies were being flung into the water next to me by the grotesque monsters, blood and innards raning down onto me as I treaded water for as long as I could.

I swam to the shore, desperate to get out of this fantasy, but once again he shattered it. It went crashing around me, shards of my surroundings flying everywhere with a warped crashing sound ringing in my ears.

In the next one, I was fighting aliens and robots with Shepard. It seemed like no other crew was around. We were freeing people trapped on a remote planet and were so close to deactivating the forcefields holding them captive in a large cell when he came to ruin things.

We had spent hours collecting access codes and fending off hoards of guards, but we were still standing and about to make it through and he was here to ruin it. He caused the shield to generate more power once we went to punch in the last access code.

The amount of power building in the shield was too unstable, causing it to intensify to dangerous levels. Once the shield had overloaded, it sent out a surge of energy that electrocuted everyone in the cell, causing them to scream out in tinny, hollow yells of pain.

The console that controlled the shield was fried and electricity arced out and hit Shepard. His armor overloaded and glowed red due to the intense heat, every bit of it frying from the overload. He was being cooked alive in what was supposed to protect him.

Then Slender Man showed himself, standing in the space between us and the now dead prisoners. My eyes focused on him and everything went silent. I blinked. I was back in my room with the scent of burned flesh lingering in the air.

I won't recount the other stories here, as I don't have the energy. Each one is as bad as the others, so forgive me for not wanting to remember them. I bet you think they all sound like bad creepypastas written by teenagers and I did warn you.

I bet you think stories about Pokemon are stupid. You know what, though? You're right. He took every silly thought, every wish, every fun little fantasy I've ever had and turned it against me. He created the elaborate worlds to dangle happiness in front of my face, only to destroy them.

He's even been toying with the fake weather outside my window. Rain while sunny, tornadoes, intense heat, upside down rain...he'll do anything absurd to confuse me. He even changes the day/night cycles to keep me tired and confused.

None of the clocks in my room run properly, nor do any of them display the correct times. Nothing on the internet has times or dates attached and the TV schedule seems to change mid-show, so I have no other means to help me know where I am in time.

To make this all stop, I purposefully fantasized about killing him. I fantasized about ripping his tentacles off and stabbing through his blank head with as big a knife I could think of. He even let them come true. I got in every means of horrible torture I could in each fantasy.

Not once would he ever be able to live once I got through with him. But, of course, once I killed him, sat back, and reveled in my victory, he was gone. The body was gone and he was standing in front of me, staring. He laughed. There was no sound, no words, but I could feel the laughter.

Truthfully, I'm not even scared anymore. I guess when I think back to specific parts of his destructions of my fantasies, I get a bit scared. I'm not even pissed off anymore. Mostly, I'm just tired. I'm defeated. This is what he wanted, after all. He's keeping me alive only to torture me.

I live in my fantasies and try to make the best of it, but I know he will always come to destroy it all. I want out. Hell, I'll take death at this point so that I don't have to risk him coming back for me. Now I'm beginning to believe this happens to everyone. After all, the only things ever found of the abducted are bags of body parts so that might not even be them. They could be in their own pocket dimensions being tortured as well.

If this gets out, please try to find a way to at least save yourself. I can't get email to go out successfully, but he may let this one out to use it against me. After all, he may just end up stalking my reader. For that, I'm sorry.

Another fantasy is starting. I should go. I think this one is where I'm a detective...

Long Jack

The Slender Man meme reminds me of a story my great-grandmother (who we used to call tiny grandma, since she was Yoda-ish) used to tell about a monster named Long Jack. I know Slender Man was started on Something Awful, but certain images and aspects remind me of that old ghost story.

I should caution that I didn't actually hear the story first-hand. When I was little, we lived for a while at my grandmother's house while my parents were sorting out a divorce. My great-grandmother lived down the road. The power would reliably go out during big winter storms in those days, and tiny grandma would come over and we'd sit in the fire and wait it out.

The old folks would tell stories and read books. I was only four or five, so tiny grandma would only tell the story of Long Jack after I fell asleep. My older brother and cousins would tell it to me later.

Now, tiny grandma and the rest of us live in the Pacific Northwest, way out in the boonies. She herself was an infant when her parents brought her out west. They were homesteaders.

There's an old dageurrotype of her as a child, standing with the rest of her class in front of a one-room log schoolhouse. There are huge, old growth trees behind her and lots of dark shadows. It's still very gloomy in the winter months in the PNW, even though the trees are much thinner these days.

Long Jack, whatever he is now, was originally a person. I don't know his real name. In that time in history, families lived by themselves in the woods, miles away from each other. However, there were a lot of people coming and going (other homesteaders, people looking for logging jobs, prospectors on the way to a gold rush, etc.).

There weren't hotels except in the bigger cities, either. When you slept, it was either in your own camp or some courteous homesteader would give you a place to sleep. Maybe violent crime wasn't an issue back then, or maybe people were more naive, but the guy who would become Long Jack was a murderer.

There had been a great string of murders in the region; whole families were slaughtered. Sometimes Native Americans would be blamed, as there were still some isolated Indian wars going on, but it didn't really look like that. It looked like people were inviting someone in and he ended up murdering them in their sleep.

Obviously, detective work wasn't big back then. In any case, sometimes it would be weeks or months before they discovered the bodies. The killer would be long gone by then.

I don't know if this one guy, Long Jack or whatever his name was, killed all of them. He did kill at least one family, though, and was caught (literally) red handed near the town of Bellingham, where my family is from.

They used to lynch people in those days. Usually it was black people. In the PNW, where there weren't a lot of black people, it was more often Chinese or East Indian men. Occasionally they lynched white men, even though they had a proper court system at the time.

It was risky to do and the vigilatntes did risk some blowback, especially for lynching white men. The local sheriff, John Larrabee, led the murderer out of his cell at night and took him out of town with a posse to some cliffs a couple miles outside the south side of town. They built a primitive gallows with an extra long rope, with the intent to hang him off the cliff extra high.

The hangman that day was a local eccentric by the name of Dan Harris. They picked him because he was a retiard sailor and knew everything there was to know about ropes and knots. He volunteered for the job, too. As a sailor, he had specifally been a whaler and had a morbid fascination with flesh and how to disassemble and render it.

If the posse had known that, they probably wouldn't have taken him on for the job. Dan Harris didn't just put a noose around the condemned man's neck. He put small nooses made of cord around each of his fingers and at the end of each cord was a heavy lead weight.,/p>

Around each wrist was a length of rope with a heavy stone. At each ankle was a rope attached to even heavier shoes. The posse watched Harris do all this, but they did not know what he was doing. Even Larrabee didn't have the forethought to object.

It came time to hang the man and somebody in the posse finally pushed. The man fell quickly to his doom. The posse expected to hear the sharp crack of a breaking neck, but all they heard was the sound of counting, in Harris' low voice. He had tied the noose to strange, not break. 1...2...3...4...

They heard a loud crack, almost like a shot. 7...8...9...10... Then they heard another. It wasn't the man's neck, but his legs dislocating from his hip. 14...15...16... They heard more pops and cracks. His shoulders dislocating, then his elbows followed by his ankles.

21...22...23... Then his fingers dislocated at each knuckle, sounding a bit like popcorn. Choking grunts could still be heard coming from the man; he was still alive and conscious throughout this. 36...37...38... Harris' voice became louder as his audience became more enraptured in the spectacle.

When he came to 43, there was the loudest crack of all. The makeshift gibbet broke and the murderer, all the weights, and rope went tumbling down the cliff face. His neck and limbs twisted and flailed into impossible angles. In the darkness, they could barely make out his corpse at the bottom. It was a horrific sight.

His limbs had all been stretched to awful, fantastical lengths, all intertwined with the ropes and each other. It was too dark to retrieve the body and, by the next day, animals had gotten to it and carried it away.

This is where my great-grandmother comes in. They used to tell her the ghost of Long Jack haunted those woods, abducting defenseless people if they so much as set foot there. They said that he would count as he stalked up behind you.

1...2...3...4... She heard him once, as she walked the long distance home from school one fall afternoon. 14...15...16... According to the story, you couldn't look back or he'd get you. You had to run as fast as you could, and ran she did.

21...22...23... The counting continued. It was like he was whispering, but it was still getting louder and it seemed he was right behind her. 27...28... She could hear his footfalls; his pace was much longer than her's - longer than any adult's.

She could tell from the rhythm that his legs were impossibly long. His arms and legs must be bending in some unnatural motion. She got to the door of their cabin...37...38...and slammed the door shut. Silence. She knew that if Long Jack had gotten to 43, she would have died.

There were other kids that got lost in those woods those days and they were never found. None of the adults ever mentioned Long Jack, but she had her thoughts to herself.

So that's the story of Long Jack, as my great-grandmother told it...or at least as my brother and cousins re-told it. I don't believe in ghosts myself, but I always liked the story. I haven't found any mention of such a murderer in the local archives but, then again, I wouldn't really expect to. Some of the other historic names, though, do check out...

39...40...41...

Pocket Change

The following text is copied from a journal I found hidden behind a loose piece of trim in my dorm room. Accompanying the journal was only a slightly rusted penny with an odd symbol carved into it. Some pages of the book are damaged. It appears that the book was wet at some point. I’ll try to fill in the blanks as best as I can. My comments will appear in brackets.

July 31, 1994

Got this new journal from Mom in the mail today. It’s pretty nice. It has leather binding and the dates written in for me and everything. Well, I guess I should write about my day. That’s the point I imagine. I saw Jim again today. I wish I knew more people like him. I’m starting to hate this place. Most of these kids are rich as hell. Snobs. I’m just good at swimming. Who the hell gets a swimming scholarship anyways? I found out Jim goes to that school just down the road. Can’t remember the name right now. I’ve had this crazy headache all day. At least that school is close enough to walk to. I’ll be able to hang out with Jim more often. He’s a really cool guy. [Random scribble] It’s so hard to write right now. My roommate is playing that obnoxious music. Who really needs to practice their trumpet at 12:30? He’s so inconsiderate. [Water damage over a word that appears to be “whatever”]

August 1, 1994

The classes are really tough. I don’t understand any of the math junk Professor Lo was talking about. At least we didn’t get any homework today. I don’t know what to do with my time though. The pools still aren’t ready yet, and I don’t really know too many other things to do after class on a Monday. To make things worse, John [the roommate?] has been spazzing out that I need to keep quiet so he can take his nap. Are you kidding me? If he doesn’t shape up soon, me and him are going to have some problems. [Bottom of the page is messed up, but doesn’t seem to have had any words on it anyways. If more pages have damage that doesn’t seem to hide any text, I won’t bother to mention it again.]

August 2, 1994

Worst day yet. My Tuesday Thursday schedule is even tougher than my Monday Wednesday Friday schedule. No homework today either though. I guess that’s a good thing, but I had this crazy headache today. I wish I had some medicine to make me feel better. Maybe I should head to the clinic? [There’s water damage over the next few lines. I honestly can’t make it out.] posed to meat Jim at Lafortune today, but he wasn’t there. I don’t think he would bail on me. I’ll call him tomorrow.

August 3, 1994

I called Jim today. He was acting really strange. He said he wasn’t sure if he should tell me. He said he didn’t want to get me involved. I tried to make him tell me what was the matter, but after a little while, he said he had to go and hung up. I’m really worried. If he isn’t better by the end of the week, I think I should call the cops.

August 4, 1994

Well, today was a big improvement. My headache cleared up, Jim called and said he had his problem under control, and even John seemed a bit nicer. I even got to swim for the first time since I got here. Being in the water makes me feel so much better. It’s such a good way to burn off stress. My classes were tough, but I got the work done. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. Jim mentioned some kind of party.

August 5, 1994

Met with Jim today. We had a lot of fun. We went swimming, got some pizza, and went to a party over at his dorm. I met a pretty cute girl there, but it turned out she already had a boyfriend. He wasn’t too happy, but I don’t care. We didn’t fight or anything like that, so it doesn’t really matter. I had a good time. I barely made it back before curfew. I had to run pretty fast. [A big smudge here, words are completely gone] one pretty weird thing though. He dropped some change and really freaked out. I asked him about it and he said [smudge interrupts a good bit of this line too] mattered to him.

August 6, 1994

First weekend on campus. The first football game isn’t until next weekend, so we had practice today. I don’t mind. I enjoyed myself. Some of the guys on the team are pretty out of shape for people who want to be swimmers. It was funny watching them breathing so hard after just a few laps. Later, John asked about yesterday. I told him about the party and he seemed interested. He asked if he could meet Jim some time. I’m glad he’s not being such a jerk for once. Maybe if I invite him along the next time me and Jim hang out, he’ll start acting nicer more often.

August 7, 1994

Today was really weird. I don’t know what’s going on. My headache randomly came back in swim practice. I blacked out. The coach was really worried when I woke up. He sent me to the clinic and they said I’m fine. The doctor checked everything he could think of and it all came up normal. On the bright side, they gave me some medicine for in [Another damaged area. I can only make out the word headache.] weird thing was, I remember seeing this really [smudge interrupts this line too, part of it seems like the word “guy”] -fore I blacked out.

August 8, 1994

Wow. Mondays are awful. The whole day was a blur. I was really tired all day and worse yet, I forgot the pills in my dorm room. The headache came back in full force and I didn’t even have them with me for a few hours. Going to bed. [This page is substantially damaged, but since the entry was so shout, none of it was interrupted.]

August 9, 1994

Classes went alright today. I’m finally starting to get a little bit of the chemistry. I’ll take what I can get in that class. I saw [Huge water damage, the rest of the page is completely illegible. It appears that this page happened to be open when the book got wet.]

August 10, 1994

Well, I got to see Jim again. It was okay. At first everything was normal. We were just relaxing in the common room. I even invited John to come chill with us, and he did. It was pretty messed up though. After a few minutes, John just randomly got up and left and then Jim freaked out. His wallet was missing. I know John took it, but when I was heading over to get it back (and maybe kick

[There’s a good bit of damage, but the entry is rather long and text continues afterwards.]

RAs had to get involved. I know he took it. I can’t believe they made me switch rooms with Carl. I’m going to get back at John for sure.

August 11, 1994

Jim called me. He was really freaking out. He just kept saying how he lost the thing. It was the only thing because the symbol doesn’t work on others. I don’t get what he means at all. I tried to get him to calm down, but he hung up on me. I called the cops and they said they sent over a squad car, but I don’t know what happened. I’m really worried about [This page is pretty bad too, but thankfully most of the entry is intact. The damage appears to diminish as the pages progress after this]

August 12, 1994

Jim died. They found him facedown floating in the pool with some weird slash on his chest. I don’t know what I’m going to do. He was my only friend here. I should beat [there’s some damage here] but I never see him around anymore. I’m going to his funeral tomorrow. The coach will have to get over it.

August 13, 1994

Jim’s funeral was really sad. I talked to his Mom. She had no idea that anything was wrong. I feel terrible. I should’ve done something. I don’t know. I’m really stressed. I want to go swim for a while, but the headache came back at the funeral and hasn’t gone away since. Those pills didn’t do anything. I saw that weird guy again. He was just [Spot of water damage] from a distance. I don’t know what to think about him. He must be wearing some sort of [Spot interrupts this line too.] Maybe he works for the school or something. Whatever, I think I’m going to swim anyways.

August 14, 1994

I’m starting to get pretty suspicious of that guy. I think he’s following me. I saw him yesterday after I got done swimming. What’s with the plain white mask? That’s really out there. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I’m going to call the cops if he doesn’t back off. Either way, I have other problems. I’ve got to do something about John. I know he stole Jim’s wallet and I know that stressed Jim out and had something to do with his death. I’m going to get the wallet back and I’m going to get John back for [the last bit is illegible]

August 15, 1994

Success. I got the wallet. That moron. He left his room unlocked when he went to class today. I found it in his room, just sitting in a drawer of his desk. I don’t know if I should turn it in though. If I do, I get John in huge trouble for stealing, but I get in trouble too. Either way, I’m going to beat him senseless next time we’re alone.

August 16, 1994

Well, I don’t know exactly what to say. John transferred. He’s in California now. That rich prick can switch schools on a whim. I think he knew I was after him. Whatever. I don’t know what to do now. I mean, I guess at the very least I got the wallet away from him. All that’s in it is Jim’s ID, a few bucks, a speedway card, and some change. John was rich though. I don’t get why he [a bit of a smudge here, but it looks like it says “vaulo steel”. I’m not exactly sure.] I really miss Jim. He would know what was going on.

August 17, 1994

Well, today was uneventful. Classes are starting to feel normal. Dining hall food is starting to get old. I still miss Jim. Not much to report. My headaches have cleared up though. I guess that’s good.

August 18, 1994

Carl gave me a note today. He said it was from John. All it was was a crumpled up piece of paper with a weird drawing of a tall stick figure guy. Then on the back it said “thepenny”. I checked Jim’s wallet and noticed that there IS one weird penny. It has this crazy mark on it. I don’t know what it means though. Carl had no clue. I tried to call John, but I don’t have his number and the number Carl gave me is dead. I’m rather confused.

August 19, 1994

I’m really freaking out. I was at practice today and I saw that really tall guy again. All of a sudden my headache hit me like a truck. I asked Sam what he thought about the guy, but he didn’t see him. So I asked Nick, but he didn’t see him either. After practice I asked the coach and he just looked at me like I was crazy. He told me to sit down and then had this big talk. Either way, I’m his best swimmer, so he won’t do anything, but he’s worried about me. I don’t know what I should do.

August 20, 1994

The guy is everywhere. Everywhere I go, he’s just looking at me. It’s the creepiest feeling ever. I called the cops, but they didn’t believe me. They said I was just stressed because of Jim. I noticed too, every time the guy shows up, my headache comes back. Maybe it is all in my head. I don’t know what to do. At least he never comes to my dorm. I don’t know why.

August 21, 1994

I keep seeing him. I’m really freaking out. Nobody else ever notices him. Maybe this is what happened to Jim. I can’t even think straight. I’m so tired. The guy is everywhere. I got a better look at him today. It isn’t a mask. His face…. It just isn’t there. I called my Mom, but I couldn’t tell her. She’s so proud that I’m here. I can’t tell her that I’m scared and want to leave. What if it IS just my imagination? A guy with no face watching me? That doesn’t even make any sense. Then again, if he isn’t real why does my headache only come back when he’s around?

August 22, 1994

I get it. The penny keeps the guy away. I don’t know why, but he didn’t come near me at all today and I had Jim’s wallet with me. Including the penny. I’m more scared than ever now though. When Jim didn’t have it, he got killed. I have to keep this with me at all times. On the plus side, as long as I always have the penny, I should be okay.

August 23, 1994

I was right. I had the penny with me all day and I never saw him once. I didn’t get any headaches either. The problem is swimming. If I take the penny in the pool, I might lose it, but if I don’t I won’t have it with me. I can’t not swim or I’ll get thrown out. I’m not sure what to do, but I have practice tomorrow.

August 24, 1994

I left the penny right on the side of the pool. It was with my towel. There was no way I misplaced it. I’m so scared. Someone had to have taken it. Well, at least I haven’t seen the guy yet. Maybe he still thinks I have it. I can pretend to still have it. I hope it works. I’ll search for it tomorrow.

August 25, 1994

He watched me search for it. He literally followed me and watched me searching the whole time. It was nowhere in the whole Rec Center though. I looked everywhere. I’m freaking out. My headache is back. It’s so bad. I even saw him outside my window earlier. That’s the closest to my dorm he’s ever come. My own room isn’t even safe. I’m going to start keeping my journal with me at all times so I can write whatever happens. This is the only way I can confide. I can’t tell anyone. Nobody will believe me.

August 26, 1994

He was in my room last night. I woke up and there was a note. ISEEYOUSLEEPING That was all it said. On the back was the same symbol as the one on the penny. He knows I need it. I don’t think that he has it though. He never comes near it. I don’t know where else to look.

August 27, 1994

I got it. I got it back. I still can’t believe it. Me and Sam went for pizza after practice and it was just sitting there in that lame little take a penny – leave a penny thing. I snatched it up so fast. Sam looked at me like I was crazy, but I don’t care. I’m safe now. It’s such a relief. I feel so much better.

August 28, 1994

Wow, today was pretty sweet. I feel so much better. I got all my work done, I called my Mom and talked to her for a bit. I think I’ll take my journal and my penny and go for a swim right now as a matter of fact.

[I checked the records. A student was found dead in the pool in the Rec Center the very next morning. It was speculated that he had went for a late night swim and had drowned. His blood tests came up negative for any alcohol, but there was no evidence of any foul play and the death was considered an accident. I personally find it odd that Notre Dame’s top swimmer just happened to drown that night. I think I had better hang onto this penny. Just in case.]

(This story is credited to a person called Kevin.)